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The Life and 'Death of 
of Qrange, Knight 



HISTORIE OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF 

ir William Hirikalti^ 

^ of (Branse, Stntgt)! S& 

WHEREIN is declared his many Wise ^Designs and Valiant oAc- 
tions, with a True Relation of his Heroic ConduSl in the Qastle of 
Edinburgh which he had the Honour to defend for the Queen of Scots. 
Now set forth from ^Authentic Sources by Harold Murdock. 




Print ED /or CbC €lub Of ODD t^OlumCS ^/Boston in 
New England in the Tear of Our Lord^ Mdccccvi 



Copyright, 1906, by i:he Club of Odd Volumes 



jUBrtARYofCONGRtSt 

Two CoDles Roceived 

JUN 20' 1906 



* 



v^v^ 









" ">■ 



To the Trader 



This sketch of an old-time Scottish soldier^ written in 
part more than twenty years since^ is now re-cast and 
completed in its present form for publication by T'he Qlub 
of Odd Volumes. There have been but two attempts to 
present a consecutive narrative of the career of the most 
famous soldier of the days ofSWary, Queen of Scots : ( i .) 
An introductory chapter entitled Biographical Sketches 
of Sir William Kircaldy of Grange, Governor of 
Edinburgh Castle, prefixed to Qonstable's edition of 
Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century, published 
in 1801 ; (2.) Memoirs and Adventures of Sir Wil- 
liam Kirkaldy of Grange, Knight, &c., published by 
^lackwood^ Edinburgh^ 1849. ^^ '^^•*" ^^^^ ^^^^^ inade- 
quacy of these accounts to convey any suggestion of the 
personality of Qrange, or of the influences which shaped 
his striking career^ that led many years ago to the studies 
that are responsible for the present sketch. 

The Memoirs of Sir James Melville of Halhiliyorw 
an important authority in regard to (jrange^ and they 
furnish by far the most intimate account of his personal 
traits and the motives which controlled his public a£is. 
Knox, ^annatyne and Qalderwood give us Kirkaldy as 
he appeared to the preachers, both in the days of his ad- 
herence to the Qongregation and in the later time when 

he 



To the iKeaUet 



/le had become estranged from his old friend^ the '^B^gent 
SVLurray. Interesting allusions to him are found in other 
contemporaneous writings. The Chronicles of Scotland 
by Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie ; the Autobiography and 
Diary of James Melville ; the Diurnal of Remarkable 
Occurrents ; and the Diarey of Robert Birrel have fur- 
nished much of the quoted matter in the following pages. 

<iAn effort has been made, in the choice of paper, types 
and embellishments, to present a volume in some measure 
suggestive of the bookmaking of those far-away days in 
which Kirkaldy lived. 'The illustrations are fully de- 
scribed in another place, and the aim has been to repro- 
duce only such as possess distin5i historic interest and are 
not easily accessible in their original state. 

vA word of appreciation is due to Mr. Updike for the 
warm interest he has taken in everything pertaining to 
the ornamentation of this volume. The search for desir- 
able illustrations, the correspondence regarding old books 
and prints in colleBions abroad, the arrangement for and 
superintendence of the engraving, have commanded his 
time and effort, and the credit for results achieved is in 
a great measure due to him. 



Table 



Table of Contents 



BOOK I 

Wherein is mentioned the Early hife of William Kir- 
kaldy at the Scottish Courts what he did at Saint ^An- 
drews Qastle, and how being sent into a Strange 
Qountry he came tojightfor the French King against 
the Emperor 3 

BOOK II 

How William Kirkaldy returned to Scotland as 
Laird of Qrange, how he overthrew Ralph Evers 
in single Qombat^ and how as a Soldier of the Con- 
gregation he defended the Fifeland against the 
Frenchmen 27 

BOOK III 

How <SMary Stuart reigned in Scotland and how 
grange accused her of Evil "Doing ; how he bore 
himself at Qar berry Hill and at Langside Field, and 
how he afterwards pursued the Earl of '^othwell 
into the V^rthern Seas 45 

BOOK IV 

How (grange became Qaptain of the Castle of Edin- 
burgh, how he came to Misdoubt the Earl of £Mur- 
ray, and how he was '•Persuaded to 'Declare that he 
stood for the Queen of Scots 73 

BOOK V 

How Qrange defended the Qastle against the Eng- 
lish 



viii Table of ContetttjS 

iish who were assisted by ail Scotland, and how the 
'Prophecy of John Knox was at length Fulfilled i o i 

APPENDIX 

"The "Ballat 121 

S^tes 1 27 



0// List 



..•V-~-'~i>,\ — -rtrf- - VTKt*:;- .-'J-a 



<tA List of Illustrations 



I. 'The Royal aArms of Scotland Title-page 

Taken from the ' ' New Actis and Constitutionis of Parlia- 
ment maid be the Rycht Excellent Prince James the Fift 
Kyng of Scottis, 1540." The book was printed by John 
Davidson of Edinburgh in that year. But two copies are 
known to exist, both printed on vellum. The engraving is 
from a photograph made for reproduction in this volume 
from the copy in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. 

The ' 'Annals of Scottish Printing, ' ' by Dickson and Ed- 
mond, says of this engraving : " It displays the insignia of 
the newly-instituted Order of the Thistle : the floral collar 
surrounding the greater part of the shield, and the jewel 
bearing the figure of St. Andrew behind his cross, depend- 
ing from the lower part. The woodcut is a very creditable 
work of art, and, if executed in Scotland, speaks favourably 
for the skill of the engraver. It is probable that Sir David 
Lyndsay, Lyon King at Arms, was the designer of the 
work." The original has JacobvsRex. 5. on ribands above 
the heads of the unicorns, for which in this book Maria 
Regina has been substituted. 

IL 'Portrait of Sir William Kirkaldy of Qrange: 

facing page 3 

Engraved from a photogravure in "Scottish Portraits," a 
recent work edited by Mr. James L. Caw, Curator of the 
Scottish National Portrait Gallery. The photogravure is 
from the painting in the possession of the Honourable Mrs. 
Baillie Hamilton, to which allusion is made on page 117 
of this work. The inscription beneath the portrait is an 
adaptation from certain lines to be found in the poem of 
Bothwell by William Edmonstone Aytoun (Ticknor & 
Fields, 1856, p. 113). 

III. Initial 



X A List of 

III. Initial Letters 

The Initials, (B) page 45, (H) page 27, and (S) page 73, 
are taken from "Davidson's Acts," the same rare book 
described above. The letters were photographed for the en- 
graver from the copy in the Advocates' Library at Edin- 
burgh. The letter B is one of the most skilfully designed 
initials used by the Scotch printers. The letter H show^s 
the figure of St. John the Evangelist holding his emblem- 
atic chalice, out of which a serpent is rising. The letter S 
displays a grotesque medley of flowers, human heads and 
angels' wings, which combined form the letter, while be- 
hind it stands St. Simon with his emblem, a two-handed 
saw .The remaining initials, (O) page 101 and (T) page 3, 
have been designed by Mr. A. B. LeBoutillier in a style 
to match the others just described. 

IV. SVLap. A part of the Kingdome of Scotland: 
page I 6 

From a drawing based on a Map of Scotland dated 1610, 
in the possession of the author. 

V. " The Siege and wynning of Sdinburg Qastel zAnno 

From the original woodcut contained in the 1577 edition 
of " Holinshed's Chronicles." The photograph from which 
this view is produced was made for reproduction in this vol- 
ume from the copy of the ' ' Chronicles ' ' in the Boston Pub- 
lic Library. This is believed to be the sketch referred to in 
"A Survey taken of the Castle and towne of Edinbrogh 
in Scotland, by us Rowland Johnson and John Fleminge, 
servants to the Q. Ma""' by the comandement of Sr. William 
Drury, Knighte, Governor of Berwicke, and Mr. Henry 
Killigrave, Her Ma"" Embassador." It shows the Castle 
from the south, and is especially interesting as indicating 
the position of the English batteries. It has been repro- 
duced once before, i.e. for the Bannatyne Club Edition of 
"The Bannatyne Miscellany" (1836). 



VI. Facsimile 



3|lluistrationj2{ 



VI. Facsimile reproduBion of a Contemporaneous 'broad- 
side; the '■'' Hail some zAdmonitioun" ^c. Imprentit at 
Edinburgh be Robert Lekpreuik, zAnno T)o. CMdlxx : 
page 127 

Photographed from the original in the Public Record Of- 
fice, London, for reproduction in this work. 

This admonition is addressed to the Laird of Grange, and 
exhorts him to support the King, and to revenge the mur- 
der of the Regent. It commences thus: 

"O lamp of licht, and peirles Peirll of pryse, 
O kenely Knicht in martiall deidis most ding 
O worthy ^vicht most vailyeant war &: wyse, 
O Capitane ay constant to the King." 

VII. Qo/ophon, including the aArms and SVLotto of Kir- 
kaldy of Qrange : page 131 

The design in which the arms are framed is from a his- 
tory of the City of Genoa, published by Plantin in 1579. 
The coat of arms (Kirkaldy of Grange. Or, two mullets 
in chief, gules, and a crescent, or) is taken from a volume 
entitled, "Fac-Simile of an Ancient Heraldic Manuscript 
emblazoned by Sir Da^id Lyndsay of The Mount. Lyon 
King of Armes, 1542." Edited by David Laing, LL.D., 
Edinburgh; published by William Paterson, 1878. 



Of the above illustrations !}{js. I to III inclusive and ^}{o. 

VII are engraved on wood by Mr. M. Lamont Brown. The 

others are rendered by mechanical process from drawings after 

original plates. 



fe: 



"BOOE^I 



'BOO^I 




WHEREIN is mentioned the Early Life of WixWmW 
l^lCkaIDJ^ at the SCOTTISH COURT, u^hat he did 
at Saint ^Andrews Qastle, and hoiv being sent into a 
Strange Qoiintry he came to Jight for the JFtCncf) lr\in0 
against the p: M P E R O R . 

HE tra\eller from EurojDc wlio 
entered England in tlie days of 
1)1 LiffKingHal regarded the land 
with some disdain. He found nei- 
ther the gaiety of Paris, the bus- 
tle and enterprise of Antwerp, 
nor the coloiii' and splendour of 
the Venetian quays. The sea- 
jxjrtswerL'for tliu most part decaying villages without 
piers and ill ciiuipped for shipping, and the inland 
towns luid hcccMiu' drowsy and dishevelled within 
theirgrass-grown walls. Ix)ndon was an imposingcity, 
with its famous bridge beneath which the Thames 
foamed and roared, while the land was studded with 
tlirifu villages whose shaded greens were thronged 
with peo])le ruddy-cheeked and stout of bearing. Still 
the realm of England seemed bleak and rude to i^^<^'^ 
used to a more polished civilization and to more 
genial climes. 

Hiirdlv a ([uarter of the soil was under cultivation 
in the days when I lenry Tudor reigned. Cilreat tracts 
of forest and moor, " bosky acres and unshrubbed 
downs," were traversed for weary miles by blind 
;uul boggy roads. So "f Mile long ■^\^(\ eiimhersome " 



w ei"e 



The Mit and J^Catlft of 



were these ways that people journeyed only upon ne- 
cessity and after due preparation for discomfort and 
peril. Above smoky towns loomed the spires of fair 
and ancient churches now purged of their Roman 
idolatries, while from the crests of oak-clothed hills, 
grim feudal castles still overlooked the land, shorn of 
their terrors, yet seeming loath to assume the more 
genial humour of the country seat.The fangs of feudal 
power had been drawn, the Roman Church had been 
despoiled, and baron and priest were crouching be- 
fore the throne. Society like the castle was in a transi- 
tion state and it was the King who ruled the land with 
the support of his loyal Commons. 

As late as the year 1540 there were few signs in 
England of the dawning of that intelleftual and mari- 
time revival which was then so close at hand. The 
Spanish galleons still ploughed unmolested the West- 
ern seas ; the Avon murmured among the reeds of 
Stratford meadows, as yet untrodden by the boyish 
feet of Shakespeare. Good Sir Thomas More had been 
five years dead ; the talented Earl of Surrey had al- 
most run his gallant course. Men were still alive who 
had fought for the rival roses at Wakefield and Tow- 
ton and whose arms had flashed in the last charge of 
Warwick on the misty field of Barnet. We can well 
imagine that around many a village fireside the ven- 
erable greybeards, inspired by wild rumours from 
Court of the fate of hapless queens, recited their re- 
colle6tions of the bloody days of Richard III. 

But England seemed fair enough if compared with 
her northern neighbour. A journey to Edinburgh was 
not entered upon hghtly in these days by the sub- 
je6ls of the English King. The Borders were in an 
unsafe and disorderly state. There were royal for- 
tresses at Berwick and Cariisle, but their influence 
scarce extended an arrow's flight beyond their walls. 

The 



Sir milliam liirfialt)^, Knt. 



The bold moss-troopers raided and plundered in de- 
fiance of edicts whether issued from London or the 
capital of tlic Scottish King. xA.ll through the broken 
country the Scottish riders were alert, with visions 
of plunder and memories of old injuries to keep their 
enthusiasm hio'h. When the traveller to the north 
lost his last glimpse of the English standard floating 
from the keep of Carlisle, he loosened his sword in 
its scabbard and looked to his clumsy pistols. 

At no time in its history did Scotland compare less 
favourably with England than during the two or 
three decades that followed the Battle of Flodden.* 
Centuries of strife had naturally told the more se- 
verely upon the weaker nation .-j- A war that called 
out the whole manhood of Scotland, leaving agricul- 
ture and trade to languish, had no such effeft in Eng- 
land. While the lands north of the Tweed had been 
repeatedly ravaged, centuries had passed since a Scot- 
tish spear had been seen from the walls of Newcastle. 
The woeful news from Flodden brought out old men 
and women to guard the walls of Edinburgh, but the 
Held was won for England by the yeomen of the 
Northern Parts ;|; while the main military power of 
the realm was waging war in France. It was only 
in that narrow belt of country which extends from 
sea to sea, between the (irampian Hills and the 
Border dales, that a civilization existed in any sense 
comparable to that of Pjigland. Elven the strong hand 
of James V had failed to redeem the Borders, while 
the mists of the northern nioLintains sheltered a j:)eo- 
ple as wild as the glens in which they lived, and as far 
removed from royal authority as the thieving riders 
of the Dehntcable Eand. 

While affairs in England were shiipcd hy th{> King 
and Coninions, in Scotland the sitiialion had resolved 
itself into a struggle between the nobility and the 

lioman 



The Lffe and ?^eatl^ of 



Roman Church for the control of the sovereign. In 
form the government was liberal enough, all classes 
having a place in Parliament, but in its v^orkings it 
was otherwise because the commoner was pra6li- 
cally a vassal. The nobles were for the most part 
ignorant, fierce and self-willed. The greater lords 
attended Parliament, and after the Continental fashion 
had begun to ere61: town houses in the quaint closes 
or lanes that led from the High Street of Edin- 
burgh. But the lesser barons shunned the capital and 
preferred to live their own wild lives among their 
vassals. As a result the dignitaries of the Church and 
the heads of a few great families dominated the Par- 
liament. Not only was there bad blood between 
these fa6lions, but the nobles themselves were es- 
tranged by numberless jealousies and feuds. These 
people made Edinburgh a turbulent dwelling-place. 
Fierce brawls stained the High Street with blood. 
The trains of rival barons encountered in narrow 
ways, and the wicked steel rang and flashed in the 
flickering glare of smoky torches. Again and again 
the great bell of St. Giles pealed out upon the night 
air, and summoned the Provost and his guard to re- 
store the peace. 

It was only among the clergy that education and ap- 
titude for pubHc affairs were to be found. It was na- 
tural that refinements and talents of this sort should 
be confined to the one class that was exempt from 
bearing arms. In the midst of seditions, raids, and 
wars, the Church quietly progressed in power and 
wealth. The religious houses, always the principal 
seats of learning, became as well the busiest trade 
centres in the kingdom. The monastery crops were 
the richest, the monastery herds the fattest, and the 
monastery brewing the best. It is claimed that at this 
time the Roman Church had by its peculiar methods 

acquired 



Sir mUliam tttrfealDt, Km. 



acquired nearly one half of the desirable lands in 
Scotland. It is easy to see that the baron had his 
grievance against the priest. His battered armour 
commanded no such respe6l or favour at Court as 
the gorgeous robes which marked the cardinal and 
bishop. 

The English King, not satisfied with suppressing 
the Roman Church within his realm, yearned in his 
pious zeal for its uprooting throughout the island of 
Great Britain. Upon his good nephew, who reigned 
in Scotland as James V, he urged the advantages 
that would accrue to God and man were he to em- 
ploy drastic measures against the Church within his 
borders. But James lacked the personal incentive 
that had animated his worthy uncle, and realized that 
the social and political conditions in Scotland did not 
invite so radical a poHcy. The Cardinal Beatoun was 
an aggressive man and James had sometimes chafed 
under his counsels, but he knew that it was only 
among the clergy that he could find advisers com- 
petent to help him in affairs of state. Henry, anx- 
ious for his projeft, despatched Sir Ralph Sadler to 
Edinburgh to reason with the King. Sadler was a 
keen observer and was not long in discovering the 
true conditions at the Scottish Court. "The noblemen 
be young," he writes (a touching reminder of the 
slaughter at Flodden ) . "I see none among them that 
hath any such agility of wit, gravity, learning, and 
experience to take in hand the dire6tion of things. 
So that the King is of force driven to use the bish- 
ops and clergy as ministers of the realm. They be 
the men of wit and policy ; they be never out of the 
King's ear." Sadler understood the situation too well 
to expe6l success, but he pressed his suit with loyal 
zeal. The King admitted the foibles of the church- 
men, but on these matters, writes Sadler, "he spoke 

very 



The life and ^t^i\^ of 



very softly, the Cardinal being present." James con- 
tended that the Church was liberal and would give 
him all he wanted. Sadler was finally repulsed with 
the less sordid sentiment, " I am sure my uncle will 
not desire me to do otherwise than my conscience 
serveth." 

But the downfall of the Roman Church in Scotland 
was to be accomplished without the agency of the 
Sovereign. The lean and hungry baron yearning for 
the rich treasure of the priests, and controlling vas- 
sals as needy as himself, was to receive with ardour 
the advent of reformatory ideas. The circulation of 
the Scriptures among the people, the fierce ha- 
rangues of zealous preachers, and the satirical poems 
of Sir David Lindesay also had their weight, and ap- 
pealed to better motives. But the repressive methods 
adopted by the Church itself furnished to the Refor- 
mation in Scotland its greatest stimulus. For the hold- 
ing of " the heresies of Martin Luther," men were 
burned at the stake. The flames were kindled on 
high land to the intent that far and wide those " see- 
ing the fire might be stricken with terror and fear." 
But such measures begat anger rather than dread. 
The burning of Patrick Hamilton before the Castle 
of St. Andrews stirred such an uproar that John 
Lindesay was led to exclaim that "the reik of Mas- 
ter Patrick Hamilton had infe6led as many as it blew 
upon." Among the students in St. Andrews it was 
fiercely asked, "Whairfor was Maister Hamilton 
brunt?" The same question passed swiftly from 
mouth to mouth throughout Fife and the Lothians. So 
the Church in its cruel dealing with zealous and stub- 
born men was preparing the way for its own undoing. 

About the year 1523 Sir John Melville of Raith, a 
scholarly and austere man, came down to Edinburgh 

with 



■ ^ - '- !- >' 



Sir miUiam litfealD^, Knt. 



with his son-in-law, Sir James Kirkaldy , the Baron of 
Kirkaldy-Grange, and presented him at Court. From 
this time the Laird of Grange was a familiar figure 
to all those who surrounded the Scottish King. His 
Castle of Kirkaldy-Grange, or the Grange, as it was 
generally known, stood on the high land between 
Kinghorn and Kirkaldy and was in those days a well- 
known landmark on that part of the coast of Fife. 
Its lofty battlements and embrasured windows com- 
manded a broad prospe6l. The golden § coast-line, 
dotted with castles and fair towns, stretched away to- 
ward the north, while to the south, beyond the gleam- 
ing waters, the highlands of Lothian loomed dimly 
above the murky pall of Auld Reekie. The site was 
a favoured one. It was within easy reach of the Court 
at Edinburgh or Falkland, and a pleasant ride in- 
land through the very garden of Scotland led to Lin- 
lithgow and Stirling. A score of miles to the east, noted 
for its University and its great Ecclesiastical Court, 
was St. Andrews, that quaint and drowsy city, lulled 
to rest by the booming of the sea and the music of 
those famous chimes silenced centuries ago. 

From the first the King was much taken with the 
Baron of Kirkaldy-Grange. He was "a stoute bold 
man," we are told, "who always offered by single 
combate and at point of the sword to maintain what- 
evere he spake;" traits not unusual, to be sure, in those 
robust times. But the King found qualities in him which 
were lacking in most of his class. " He esteemed him 
true," and in 1527 he invested him with the office of 
Lord High Treasurer of the realm. To the church- 
men this boisterous man with the ready sword was by 
no means agreeable, and erelong they were whis- 
pering to the King that the Laird of Grange " was 
become a heretic and that he had always a New Testa- 
ment in English in his pouch." But the King was not 

to 



lO 



The Iffe and l^eatl^ of 



to be moved and roundly declared that he valued the 
plain, frank gentleman from the castle of Kirkaldy- 
Grange. So it remained for his enemies to complain 
among themselves " that Grange had become so vain 
and arrogant by His Majesty's favour that no man 
could abide him." 

The King appears to have detefted some signs of 
humour in the clashing of the rival faftions, and it was 
in sportive mood that he is said to have displayed to 
Grange a list of eminent persons in Scotland who in 
the judgement of the Cardinal Beatoun it would be 
well to burn for heresy. As his own name was promi- 
nent in the schedule, it is to be feared that Grange 
did not enter fully into the mirthful spirit of the King. 
We do not know how well the Baron guarded his 
tongue in this matter, but after a little time we find 
it murmured in Edinburgh, and also at the English 
Court, that " the Cardinal Beatoun is said to stand 
in danger of his life from the Baron of Kirkaldy- 
Grange." 

One result of the spread of the Reformed do6f rines 
in Scotland was to modify the old hatred of England. 
The Laird of Grange was one of a most formidable 
party who urged upon James a marriage with the 
sister of the Enghsh King, and the cultivation of 
friendly relations with "the auld enemy." Between 
this fa6lion on the one hand and the Cardinal Bea- 
toun on the other, the head that wore the Scottish 
crown rested uneasily indeed. The Cardinal's party 
achieved their purpose in bringing about the royal 
marriage with a daughter of the House of Guise, 
a sister of those famous brothers who were regarded 
upon the Continent as the brightest ornaments and 
most powerful defenders of the Roman faith. These 
nuptials took place in 1538, to the intense chagrin of 
Henry VIII and of the Protestant party in Scot- 
land. 



'•vr"'^'^^/^ 



Sir milliam iitrfialD^, Ktit. 



II 



land. Our Fifeshire baron was disgusted with the 
vacillation of his Monarch. " My warding or my Hfe 
are trifling matters," he complained to the royal face, 
" but alas it breaks my heart that the world should 
hear your Majesty is so facile." 

Henry did not yet abandon the hope of accomplish- 
ing something with his nephew, and a short time 
after the marriage an agreement was made between 
the Sovereigns to meet at York to discuss the issues 
that had so long disturbed them. Henry reached the 
rendezvous as agreed, but churchly and perhaps 
wifely considerations dissuaded James from his pur- 
|X)se. For four days his stormy Majesty of England 
fretted and fumed at York, and then, his scanty 
store of patience exhausted, he let slip the dogs of 
war. A fierce scourge of fire and sword swept over 
the hapless Borderside. At the head of an imposing 
power King James moved southward for the defence 
of Scottish soil. But on arriving at Fala and receiv- 
ing news that the English bands had been with- 
drawn, the nobles refused to continue the advance. 
The King was helpless in the face of such wholesale 
defection. He managed to push a scanty force across 
the Western Border, but they had little heart in their 
work, and while engaged in disorder and strife among 
themselves, they were attacked on Solway Moss and 
disgracefully routed. This was a death-blow to the 
King. Stung with shame and chagrin he gave himself 
over to profound melancholy. He made his weary way 
to Edinburgh, rested a few hours in his new palace 
of Holyrood, and then passed on toward Falkland in 
great deje61:ion of spirit. He decided to break his jour- 
ney at Sir James Kirkaldy's house of Halyards, which 
lay high in the wooded country a few miles north 
of the Castle of Kirkaldy-Grange. We are indebted 
to John Knox for a minute description of this visit. 

The 



12 



The Life and i^eatl^ of 



The Baron was absent, but the Lady of Grange " hu- 
manely" received her Monarch. " Perceiving that he 
was pensive the lady began to comfort him, and willed 
him to take the work of God in good part." To 
which the King replied, " My portion of the world is 
short for I will not be with you fifteen days." When 
asked where he would pass the Christmas season 
which then approached, he answered with "a dis- 
dainful smile," " I cannot tell. Choose ye the place, 
but this I tell you on Yule day you will be master- 
less and the realm without a king." 

This narrative of Knox has an added interest as 
introducing for the first time on the historical stage 
William Kirkaldy, the eldest son of the Baron, a lad 
in his teens, who was travelling in the suite of the 
King. No record is preserved of the date of his birth, 
but we know that he first saw the light in the old 
castle above the Forth, probably at about the time 
that his father was made Lord High Treasurer of 
the realm. Of his early training no record remains, 
but it is safe to say that the " stoute man " with the 
ready sword saw to it that he grew up proficient in 
all manly exercises. As Knox refers to Lady Kir- 
kaldy as a "godly matron," and as her father the 
Knight of Raith was everywhere known as an arrant 
Calvinist, there can be no doubt as to the religious 
atmosphere in which the youth was bred. The mono- 
tony of life at the castle and at Halyards must have 
been broken by frequent journeys with his father to 
Falkland, Edinburgh, or beyond. It is also certain 
that he was sent at an early age to the University 
of Paris. As a student there, he found George Bu- 
chanan teaching in the College of Cardinal Lemoine, 
and made the acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Ran- 
dolph, whom in later years he was to find in Edin- 
burgh as the shrewd Ambassador of England at the 

Court 



Sir mtlltam i^frfialtit. Km. 13 

Court of the Queen of Scots. Why the youth was sent 
overseas and how long he remained at the French 
capital, we do not know, but it is fair to assume that 
the whole proje6l was distasteful to both Lady Kir- 
kaldy and her father. Paris to them was the seat of 
all iniquity, a stronghold of "the Pope that pagan 
full of pride." But the Baron was doubtless of another 
mind. Attendance at Court may have convinced him 
that a lack of what Sadler had described as "men 
of wit and policy" was a serious handicap to his party, 
and that for the future Scotland mustbe ruled by those 
whose wits were as keen as their swords. 

The King rested at Halyards for one night, and 
the next morning passed on toward Falkland with 
William Kirkaldy in his train. The lad was at Falk- 
land a few days later when the messenger came gal- 
loping into the courtyard with the tidings from Lin- 
lithgow that the Queen had given birth to a daughter, 
that hapless Princess destined to win a mournful fame 
as Mary, Queen of Scots. He may have stood by the 
Royal bedside when these tidings were announced 
and heard the lament of the stricken King, " It came 
with a lass, it will go with a lass." "He spake little 
from thenceforth," says Pitscottie, "but turned his 
back to his lords and his face to the wall." It was 
seven days later that "with all his lords about him 
he held up his hands to God," and so died. 

James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, was chosen Pro- 
te6lor and Governor of Scotland by the Lords at 
Edinburgh, as was fitting in view of his kinship to 
the reigning house. To strengthen his hands against 
the Cardinal Beatoun, who had coveted this honour 
for himself, Arran recalled from exile the Earl of 
Angus and Sir George Douglas, who for fifteen 
years had resided in England under the displeasure 
of James V . The solicitude which King Henry of Eng- 
land 



14 



The Life and J^Catlft of 



land had always displayed for his dear nephew was 
now transferred to the babe who lay in her cradle at 
Linlithgow. Looking to the future union of the realms 
he proposed a marriage contra6l between the in- 
fant Queen and Prince Edward, his eldest son. The 
custody of the Queen was to be given into the hands 
of the English King, and pending her arrival at mar- 
riageable years an English council would sit at Edin- 
burgh, and English soldiers garrison the Gastle that 
overhung the town. These proposals were soon urged 
as demands. The nobles captured at Sol way Moss 
had been allowed to return to Scotland on the promise 
of supporting the policy of the King. These men 
added much strength to the English party, which, as 
we have seen, was already strong in Scotland. This 
party also profited much by the home-coming of the 
Earl of Angus and Sir George Douglas, who had 
pleasant memories of courtesies and hospitality ex- 
tended to them at the English Court. 

But the fiery Henry seriously embarrassed his ad- 
vocates in Scotland, and Sadler vainly urged upon him 
the wisdom of patience and fair words. "The Scotch 
are a stout nation," said Sir Adam Otterburne, " and 
will never consent that an English king rule over 
them." Sir George Douglas was no less outspoken: 
"It is impossible to be done at this time though the 
whole nobilities of the realm would consent unto it, 
yet our common people and the stones in the streets 
would rise and rebel against it." Unhappily the Earl 
of Arran was a man " altered by every man's flattery 
and fair speech." While himself of the Reformed re- 
ligion he had a wholesome dread of the Cardinal 
Beatoun, behind whom he saw looming the vast power 
of the Princes of Lorraine and of the Catholic King 
of France. His vacillation drove all parties to distrac- 
tion. " He is the most inconstant man in the world," 

cried 



Sir mtlltam titrfialDt> Knt. 15 

cried the Oueen Mother, " for whatsoever he deter- 
mineth to-day he changeth to-morrow." It was Sir 
George Douglas who suggested the idea to the Re- 
gent that the Cardinal be kidnapped and sent into 
England. This appealed to Arran's sense of humour. 
" He had lever go into Hell," was his delighted com- 
ment. 

About this time 1 1 we find the Earl of Hertford in 
Scotland writing to Henry VIII that "The Laird of 
Grange, the Master of Rothes, and others would 
attempt either to apprehend or slay the Cardinal as 
he shall go through the Fife-land as he doth sun- 
drie times to St. Andrews." Nothing came of this 
proje6l for the time. The Cardinal was wary, and we 
can only speculate as to whether this design of Kir- 
kaldy had any connection with the suggestion made 
by Douglas to the Regent. 

The Parliament, composed largely of King Henry's 
faction, finally agreed to the Enghsh match and that 
the Queen should be given into English custody when 
she became ten years of age.** The Earl of Arran 
assented to this arrangement, only to retraft his ap- 
proval a few days later. Henry of England could 
be controlled no longer. His fleets landed troops at 
Leith, which was sacked and burned. Edinburgh was 
put to the torch, " and continued burning," says Pits- 
cottie, "all that day and the two days next ensuing 
so that neither within the walls nor in the suburbs 
was left any one house unburnt." We read of the 
destruction of "a fair town called Haddington," to- 
gether with its famous abbey, long styled in rever- 
ential fondness "The Lamp of Lothian." The good 
people of Dunbar, newly gone to their beds, perished 
in the flames of their dwellings; Jedburgh w^as plun- 
dered and wrecked ; while at Melrose a savage sol- 
diery cast down the tombs of those mighty men who 

in 



i6 



The life and ^mt\^ of 



in bygone ages founded the strength of the House 
of Douglas. For days Teviotdale and the Merse saw 
the sun dim and ruddy through smoke clouds, while 
from the walls of Berwick the English warders be- 
held with awe the broad current of the Tweed as it 
came down to the sea bearing ghastly trophies of 
this "rough wooing" by the English King. 

With difficulty the Regent Arran was roused to take 
decisive measures against the invader. The name of 
Kirkaldy does not appear in the list of those who took 
uparms at this crisis, but there is small doubt that father 
and son were among those " sundriebarrones and gen- 
tlemen of Fife," mentioned by Pitscottie, who " with 
jack and spear " joined the Regent " foment Melrose 
in guid order." We may rest assured that they were 
among that hardy band who under Norman Leslie bore 
the Scottish Lion to vi6lory on the bloody field of An- 
crum Moor, and that their joy was hardly less fierce 
than that of Angus when the bloody corse of Ralph 
Evers-f -f was laid to rest in the desecrated aisles of 
Melrose. 

King Henry's loss of temper had afforded a rare 
opportunity to the Catholic party in Scotland, but the 
Cardinal Beatoun could see in it only the Heaven-sent 
chance to root out heresy in the realm. The Regent 
abjured the Reformed dodlrines and was reconciled 
to the Roman Church, one of the first fruits of his 
recantation being the removal of the Baron of Kir- 
kaldy-Grange from his office as Treasurer. A long 
list of savageries culminated in theburning of George 
Wishart, a Reformed minister, before the Castle of 
St. Andrews. This event outraged the public mind 
and proved as harmful to the ecclesiastical cause as 
the death of Hamilton a few years before. Wishart 
suffered under the eyes of the Cardinal, who reclined 
in a window of the castle to witness his passing. As 

the 





^.MC 



4-0 







c^--^ 




"^.^^^r^: 





n ze To j^I 20 ^. t7| ggNOR^o.THigl 3o, 
■} > ; >! ji.^>^j jyyyy/a ^mm VyAom V tum \m>M "m^m W/m WA^^y>A W^ma — \m^ 



«Mfl iudo^^M iu/i^£e£ A JUi^i££,ea ■^>^-?^>--'-' 

A PAR.T OF 



A. r A. xs^ T O "F 

THE KINGDOMS OF 5COTLA 




iti's x mj 



Sir mUlianx i^ttfialD^, Km. ,7 

the flames rose the voice of the martyr was heard to 
declare something to this effeft, "God forgive yon 
man that hes so glorious on the wall head; but 
within a few days he shall lie there as shameful as 
he is glorious now." The common people in Scotland 
held the Reformed preachers in almost superstitious 
reverence and set great store by their prophetic 
powers. The dying words of Wishart passed rapidly 
through the land until thousands came to believe that 
the Cardinal was accursed and that his end was near. 
Then followed the murder at St. Andrews. In the 
early dawn of that May morning in 1 546 we find a 
band of sixteen assassins in full possession of the 
gates and courtyard of the Cardinal's castle. Norman 
Leslie, the hero of Ancrum Moor, is the leading 
spirit, and there, too, we recognize again the youth- 
ful heir of Kirkaldy-Grange. The lad was not among 
those who forced their way to the Cardinal's chamber 
and did the bloody deed, but his sword was out and 
he made wild work among the castle guards. It was a 
black business, and it is to be feared that it was a sense 
of personal rather than national wrongs that nerved 
the arms of the assassins. Norman Leslie held a bitter 
grudge against the Primate, and we have already 
seen what the relations were between the Baron of 
Kirkaldy-Grange and the chief ecclesiastic of the Ro- 
man Church in Scotland. Why the son rather than the 
father was engaged in this affair, we do not know, 
but before night on the day of the murder the Baron, 
with many other Fifeshire gentlemen, had joined the 
assassins in the ca.stle. It is to be noted as an evidence 
of the temper of the conspirators that the mangled 
remains of the great Cardinal were early displayed 
from the battlements, to the end that the prophecy 
of Ma.ster Wishart might be fulfilled. 
Then followed the forfeiture of the assassins by 

Parliament 



The life and l^eatl^ of 



Parliament and the siege of St. Andrews Castle. 
English gold found its way within the beleaguered 
walls, and doubtless into the pockets of the besieging 
nobles whose work was tame indeed. There is no 
trace of horror at the crime to be found in the Pro- 
testant literature or memoirs of the day , and while Sir 
David Lindesay of the Mount burlesqued the event 
in verse we find John Knox writing "merrily" of the 
" Godly fadl." The war still smouldered on the Bor- 
ders and the Catholic party prevailed upon the Regent 
to appeal to France for aid. The heats of summer 
passed, the autumn waned, the winter blasts from the 
German Ocean roared over the castle battlements, 
and still the garrison bade defiance to the whole 
power of the Kingdom of the Stuarts. It was in the 
early spring of 1 547, the late snows were still gleam- 
ing on the crests of the Lomond hills, when John Knox, 
then just coming into notice as a forceful preacher, 
made his way into the castle and cast in his lot with the 
defenders. There he found one of the strangest and 
most ill assorted assemblies that has ever gathered in 
any cause. The fiercest theological zeal went hand in 
hand with all viciousness and crime. It was a band 
made up on one hand of fanatics who walked grimly 
in the ways of the Lord, and on the other of brawling 
ruffians who feared neither God nor man. While in 
one part of the castle John Knox thundered his doc- 
trines and hurled anathemas upon the evildoers, in 
another boisterous dissipation held shameless sway. 
In the intervals of the siege the good people of St. An- 
drews and of the country round about suffered fearful 
outrage at the hands of the unruly garrison. As the 
summer deepened the rough preacher betook him- 
self to prophecy. He declared that the castle walls 
should "be but as e^g shells," that England would 
not rescue them, that " they should be delivered into 

their 



u,A L I —•^^esm^K^^^'mm^mmmmmmim 



Sir mtUiam l^irfialDt^ Knt. 19 

their enemies hands, and carried afarofFinto a strange 
country." 

The superstitious garrison showed disheartenment 
at these words, and on the twenty-ninth of June, 1547, 
a fleet of sixteen galleys, flying the standard of 
France, made their way into St. Andrews Bay. Then 
there was siege in earnest, for the veterans of France 
were far different foes from the turbulent vassals of 
the half-hearted Scottish peerage. The dash of Nor- 
man Leslie and the courage of the Kirkaldys availed 
nothing against such enemies as these, direfted by the 
skill of Leo Strozzi who had recently foiled the ar- 
mies of the Emperor before Siena. On July thirtieth, 
the walls of the castle having been fatally breached, 
the garrison surrendered to the King of France. The 
defenders were taken aboard the galleys and trans- 
ported to French ports. William Kirkaldy and Nor- 
man Leslie found their prison on the sea-girdled rock 
of St. Michel. John Knox, in the valley of the Loire, 
pulled wearily at a galley oar throughout the long 
winter, while the Baron of Kirkaldy-Grange fumed 
and chafed in stri6l confinement within the Castle of 
Cherbourg. So the prophecy of John Knox came true 
and the Kirkaldys and their ill-starred colleagues were 
carried "afar off into a strange country." 

The bearing of William Kirkaldy at St. Andrews 
had been much to the liking of Knox, and though 
scores of miles separated the castled rock of St. Mi- 
chel from the rotting galley on the Loire, in some 
way the two managed to maintain communication 
with each other. That Kirkaldy was true to the re- 
former's standards and to the early teachings of the 
Lady Janet, his mother, is shown by his refusal to 
attend mass at the command of his captors " unless 
he should be permitted to kill the priest." This evi- 
dence of his hopeful spiritual state was followed by 

a 



20 



The life and f^t^tX^ of 



a letter in which he desired to know of Knox "if it 
was lawful for him to break his bonds." To this came 
in due time an affirmative reply from the preacher, 
provided it could be accomplished without the shed- 
ding of blood. And now the jailors at St. Michel fell 
upon evil times for they had to contend with the ready 
wit and the strong arms that had mastered Beatoun's 
castle. On the eve of the birthday of Henry II the 
vigilance of the castle guards was relaxed because 
of overmuch drinking of His Majesty's health. Kir- 
kaldy and two companions seized the opportunity, 
and as a result of a bloodless scuffle the warders were 
soon in confinement and the hardy Scotchmen mak- 
ing their way in the early dawn through the shal- 
low waters to the mainland. " Great search was made 
through the whole country for them," writes Knox, 
"but they escaped the hands of the faithless." 

It is not clear how John Knox gained his liberty nor 
why the Baron of Kirkaldy-G range was released by 
the French King, but these men, with Norman Les- 
lie and William Kirkaldy, had in 1550 regained 
British soil and made their way to London. The at- 
mosphere of Scotland was still uncongenial for all 
those who had wrought the crime of St. Andrews. 
Henry VIII had passed away, and Edward VI held 
his mild sway over England; the Queen of Scots 
had been betrothed to the Dauphin of France, and at 
nine years of age was dwelling at the French Court 
under the eyes of her ambitious uncles of the House 
of Guise. W^hile Edward lived all went well with the 
exiles, though to men of their a6tive habits life in 
London may have been dull enough. The city that 
Kirkaldy saw had suffered much in appearance in the 
past decade. The mansions of the great nobles still 
rendered it imposing, and the prosperity of the mer- 
chants was evidenced in many a fine hall or palace 

rising 



Sir 2Ullliam i^ttfealDr, K7it. 



ZI 



rising here and there above the low timbered roofs 
that ckistered thickly westward of the Tower. But 
the eye was everywhere offended by the ruins of the 
churches and religious houses that had been wrecked 
and rifled by the ruthless citizens of King Harry's 
day. It is to be feared that Kirkaldy and his friends 
gazed upon these sights and found them good, that 
they did not mourn for the colour and the pomp with 
which the churchmen had invested the capital, and 
which had passed away with the fall of their spires 
and shrines. Like the rascal rabble thronging as ever 
on the Bridge and in old St. Paul's, they regarded 
these signs of ecclesiastical woe as a righteous pur- 
ging wrought by the hand of God. A pension from 
the English Crown soothed them for the loss of 
their Scottish revenues until the untimely death of 
the young King brought Mary Tudor to the throne. 
Then there was an end of pensions and it behooved 
the slayers of a Primate to look elsewhere for shelter. 
John Knox made his way to Geneva, that famous ren- 
dezvous for those of his way of thinking, while Nor- 
man Leslie and William Kirkaldy crossed the Channel 
and placed their swords at the disposal of the French 
King. 

The presence of the Queen of Scots in Paris had 
drawn many Scotchmen thither, and in such favour 
was the nation held at the French Court that our re- 
cruits were well received despite the tragedy of St. An- 
drews and the escapade of Mont St. Michel. Henry 
was preparing for his bold stroke against Charles V, 
and stout soldiers were in demand. All sorts of mar- 
tial exercises were popular, and at these Kirkaldy 
appeared to much advantage. "The King," says Sir 
James Melville, " used him so familiarly as to chuse 
him commonly upon his side, and because he shott far 
with a great shaft at the butts, the King would have 

him 



22 



The Mit and ^t^i\^ of 



him to shoot two arrows, one for his pleasure." The 
Court of France was doubtless at this time the most 
pohshed and splendid in Europe. Great soldiers, keen 
statesmen, men of letters and science, thronged the 
salons of Henry II, and fair ladies reigned over all. 
To men bred to the saddle and the spear the luxury 
of this environment formed a strange transition. Kir- 
kaldy may well have carried through life vivid mem- 
ories of that famous Court: the commanding figure 
and haughty courtesy of Fran9ois de Guise, the mar- 
tial presence and grave bearing of Coligny, the boy- 
ish features and the keen glance of the Cardinal of 
Lorraine, the modest deference of Ambroise Pare, the 
bent figure of Rabelais, the witty Vicar of Meudon. 
There, too, was the dazzling beauty of the fair Diane, 
the dark impassive face of the vengeful Queen, and 
the childish graces of the Queen of Scots as she moved 
radiant among her bright Maries. It was a brilliant 
company that thronged the lists to applaud the feats 
of mimic war, that swept through the Royal halls in 
the mazes of the dance, or sat hushed with bated 
breath listening to the latest sonnet or ode of Mon- 
sieur Ronsard. 

But the trumpets were sounding for the campaign, 
and Kirkaldy and Norman Leslie were glad to fol- 
low the Great Constable of France to the field. The 
campaigns of 1553 and 1554 in the Low Countries 
proved a brilliant succession of battles and sieges from 
which the Duke of Guise snatched fair laurels at 
Metz, and the armies of the Emperor final vi6lory 
at St. Quentin. These two years of hard campaign- 
ing with the greatest captains of the time, employing 
all the most modern machinery of war, afforded Kir- 
kaldy the experience that enabled him to hold un- 
disputed throughout his life the title of the first sol- 
dier of Scotland. Norman Leslie met a hero's death 

on 



Sir miWimx l^ttfialDi?, Knt. 23 

on the hillsides of Renti, and we are assured that " no 
man made greater dole for his death than the laird 
of Grange." At the close of the campaign Kirkaldy 
accompanied the King to Paris, his name known and 
respe(5led throughout the army. " He was extolled," 
said Sir James Melville, " by the Duke of Vendome, 
Prince of Conde and Duke of Aumale, governors 
and colonels then in Picardy and I heard the King, 
Henry II, point unto him and say, ' Yonder is one of 
the most valiant men of our time.' The Great Con- 
stable of France would not speak with him uncov- 
ered, and the King gave him an honourable pension, 
whereof he never sought payment." 

But the young Scotchman had faced the hosts of 
the Emperor without love for the cause he had es- 
poused. His heart was in the Fifeland, and he longed 
to be back among his people at the castle above the 
Scottish Sea.];]; It filled him with rage to hear how the 
Queen Mother reigned for the Roman Church with 
French soldiers at her back. Neither the respe6l of 
his comrades, the allurements of the Court, nor the 
good will of the King could win his afFe6f ion for the 
great dynasty beneath whose silver lilies he had 
marched and fought. Under date of March first, 
1 557, we find Sir Nicholas Wotton, the English Am- 
bassador at Paris, writing as follows to Lord Paget at 
London : " I have heretofore certified to the Queen's 
Majesty what good will this bearer Kirkaldy seemed 
to bear to Her Majesty and to the realm of Eng- 
land, how little he is contented with the present state 
of Scotland, and how desirous he is to see it freed from 
the yoke of Frenchmen and restored to its former 
liberty, and also what offx^rs he hath divers times 
made to serve the Queen's Majesty. . . . Forasmuch 
as he returneth now to Scotland, and thereby hath 
occasion to pass through England, I advised him to 

do 



24 



Sir aatuiam Ittfealtii?, Knt. 



do that which I perceived he was before of himself 
disposed to do — to visit you by the way." 

It is a singular fa6l in regard to this letter that many 
historians have made the error of disregarding its 
date and assuming that Elizabeth was "the Queen's 
Majesty" to whom it refers. But Mary Tudor had 
yet many months to live and it was as her Ambassa- 
dor that Wotton was dwelling at the Court of France, 
and it was to her that he declares Kirkaldy bore 
"good will." With the life of the camp and at the 
Tournelles as an antidote for the teachings of John 
Knox, we can fancy that Kirkaldy 's political and re- 
ligious views had undergone some modification since 
the day he broke his bonds at Mont St. Michel. De- 
spite the fa6l that Bloody Mary ruled in England, he 
believed the real danger to Scotland lay in the am- 
bition of the Princes of Lorraine. He had much cause 
to love the French King; he remembered well the 
*' rough wooing "of Henry VIII, but he was still of the 
opinion in which he had been bred, that lasting peace 
with England was not only necessary to the welfare 
of Scotland, but quite possible of achievement. How- 
ever much his conscience may have been concerned 
in the do6lrines of Master Knox, he had also come to 
see that in the spread of Protestant ideas throughout 
the island of Great Britain there was an influence at 
work that made for political unity. 



'BOOF^ II 



"BOOK^II 



"BOOK^II 




HOW COilliam I^irkalDp returned to SCOTLAND 
as HaitD of (Grange, how he overthrew JRalpf) (!Btiet0 

in single Qomhat^ and how as a Soldier of the Congrega- 
tion he defended the FIFE LAND against the JTr0ncf)= 

men. 

OW the young soldier was re- 
ceived in London, we do not 
know,nor whether he urged that 
the troops of the Enghsh De- 
fender of the Faith should be 
employed to expel from Scotland 
the troops of His Most Christian 
Majesty of France. Before the 
summer had passed he trod again the far-viewing 
battlements of that ancient castle in which he had 
been born. It was as Baron of Kirkaldy-Grange that 
the young man reappeared among his friends in Fife, 
for his stout old father had died a few months before 
and now slept with his ancestors in the httle church 
that nestled in the shadow of the castle wall. Nor was 
this the only bereavement he had suffered during his 
exile. His grandfather, the stern Knight of Raith, had 
in the last days of the reign of Edward VI been put 
to death at Stirling, by order of the Regent, for con- 
ducing a treasonable correspondence with England. 
The devotion of the father and the grandfather to the 
cause of the English alliance came home to Grange 
with new force now that they were both gone. 
Aside from his personal sorrows the home-coming 

of 



28 



The tilt and J^eatl^ of 



of Grange was dreary enough. He found public af- 
fairs in a sad state. The tyranny of Mary of England 
had filled Scotland with refugees who stirred the com- 
mon people by their tales of persecution suffered, and 
of Smithfield bonfires. John Knox had made his way 
home in 1 556, and his voice was ringing up and down 
the land calling the Roman Church to account. One 
by one the great nobles were declaring for the Re- 
formed faith, thereby winning favour with the com- 
mons and a reasonable surety of increased wealth 
when the treasures of the Church should be divided. 
Mary of Guise, the Queen Dowager, who had dis- 
placed Arran as Regent, while inclined by nature to 
leniency was much influenced by her bigoted bro- 
thers in France. She pursued a shifting policy, at one 
moment fierce and cruel, at another weak and relent- 
ing. It was in the hope of placating the rapidly in- 
creasing Protestant party that she recalled the offend- 
ers of St. Andrews. While the presence of a Roman 
Catholic Princess on the English throne had, as we 
have seen, stimulated the growth of Protestant doc- 
trine among the common people in Scotland, it had 
dampened the political ardour of the English party 
north of the Tweed. True to her engagements with 
her brothers in France, the Regent strove to employ 
her power in threatening measures against the Eng- 
lish posts on the Border. But the Scottish nobles failed 
her as they had failed the King, her husband, when 
any aggression was attempted on English soil. She 
could rely only upon her French troops, and they 
were too few for offensive measures. In view of these 
circumstances, and considering Wotton's letter of the 
spring of 1 557, it is surprising in the fall of that year 
to find Lord Wharton, who commanded for England 
on the Borders, writing to London of a conference 
held with the Laird of Grange, who, with the Lord 

James 



Sir mniimx MrfialDt, Knt. ^^ 

James Stuart and others, is clearly a6ling in the in- 
terest of the Regent and her French allies. Whether 
the attitude of Grange at this time was brought about 
by the memory of some rebuff encountered during 
his stay in London, or because of the evidence Scot- 
land offered of the savage policy of Mary Tudor, we 
can only conje6lure. His course may be traceable to 
the influence of the Lord James Stuart, with whom he 
consorted much in these days. This young man was 
a natural son of James V, and as a child had been 
created Prior of St. Andrews. He had gone to France 
in 1 548 in the train of his sister, the Scottish Queen, 
and did not reappear in Scotland until six or seven 
years had passed. With fine natural endowments, the 
Lord James had eagerly improved the varied advan- 
tages afforded by a residence at the French Court. 
A close student of military affairs, he attained even 
greater proficiency in those graceful and subtle ac- 
complishments that mark the scholar and the states- 
man. It was in Paris that Grange first met this accom- 
plished scion of the House of Stuart, and a warm 
friendship resulted. The intimacy between the young 
men was destined to endure for many years and to 
exercise a strong influence upon the chara6ler, con- 
du6l and fate of the Laird of Grange. 

It was during his service on the Border in the spring 
of 1 B5^ that Grange underwent the challenge of Sir 
Ralph Evers. Pitscottie states "that the Lord Evers' 
brother desired to fight with William Kirkaldy, Laird 
of Grange, in single combat upon horseback with 
spears and the said William was very well content 
thereof." The combat took place on the slopes of the 
Halidon Hill in the presence of the two armies. Evers 
was accompanied by his brother, Lord Evers, the 
Governor of Berwick ; Grange by Monsieur D'Oy- 
sel, the Lieutenant of the King of France in Scotland. 

"The 



30 The Life and J^eatl^ of 

" The Laird of Grange," says Pitscottie, " ran his ad- 
versary the Englishman through the shoulder blade 
and off his horse, wounded deadlie and in peril of his 
life. But whether he died or lived I cannot tell, but 
Grange wan the vi6lorie." 

Aside from the light it throws upon the chara6ter 
of Grange, this incident is memorable as being the 
last of those knightly jousts which form so pi61;ur- 
esque a feature in the history and tradition of Border 
strife. Kirkaldy with his Fifeshire spearmen may have 
been back in Edinburgh before the summer months, 
and the Regent could hardly be indifferent to the ser- 
vice he had done. But so shrewd a woman may well 
have feared that in this stalwart scion of a brave and 
heretical ancestry there was the nucleus of much 
trouble for her cause. 

The year 1558 was marked by more important 
events than the vi61;ory of Grange over Evers. In 
April the Queen of Scots was married in Paris to the 
Dauphin of France, and in the fall Mary Tudor 
yielded up her troubled life and the Princess Elizabeth 
ascended the throne of England. The Scottish Par- 
liament despatched a deputation of distinguished men 
to represent the nation at the nuptial festivities in Paris, 
but before they reached the French coast on their 
homeward journey, no less than five of these emi- 
nent persons were seized with sudden illness and died. 
The Lord James Stuart was among those stricken, 
but recovered. Poison immediately suggested itself 
to the popular mind in Scotland, and as the Protestant 
element was largely represented in the deputation, 
the Princes of Lorraine and the Roman Church were 
roundly charged with murder. An event that might 
have been the happy occasion of allaying party bit- 
terness thus became the means of widening the breach 
between the religious faftions and of advancing the 

interests 



Sir muiimx l^irfealDr, Knt. 31 

interests of the Reformation. The accession of Eliza- 
beth and the reiistablishmentof Protestantism in Eng- 
land came at a happy moment for this cause. So in 
1559 what Pitscottie quaintly styles "the uproar of 
religion" was let loose upon the land. The Church 
met the rising influence of the preachers and the grow- 
ing defeftion among the nobles as unwisely and as 
savagely as of yore. The venerable Milne was burned 
at the stake, and the Reformers responded with a6ls 
of savage vandalism. It was the display of idols in the 
procession on St. Giles day in Edinburgh that moved 
the rabble to frenzy. Although the Regent herself 
rode in the pageant, the mob could not be restrained. 
"Then, "says Knox," the priests and friars fledfaster 
than they did at Pinkie Cleuch. Down go the crosses, 
off go the surplices, round caps and cornered crowns. 
The Grey Friars gaped, the Black Friars blew, the 
priests panted and fled." 
The unhappy Regent would fain have effe6led some 
honest compromise, but with the marriage of her 
daughter in Paris the influence of her brothers be- 
came too strong to be resisted. The events of the 
years i559 and 1560 form a sad and weary chapter 
in the annals of Scotland. The preachers were sum- 
moned to appear at Stirling to answer charges of 
heresy and sedition, but they came so strongly at- 
tended that there was nothing for it but to dismiss 
them with courtesies and fair words. The godly peo- 
ple of Perth stoned tlie frightened priests and then 
wrecked their fair cathedral. The Regent was re- 
strained from retaliatory measures by the uprising of 
the gentlemen of Fife. She was allowed to enter Perth 
at last on conditions that she promptly violated; her 
march upon St. Andrews was checked by a superior 
force. The fall of 1 ,559 found her at Dunbar, worsted 
and humiliated at every point. Her duplicity at Perth 

had 



32 The Mit and ?^eatl^ of 

had cost her the support of the Earl of Argyle and 
also of the Lord James Stuart, who, however, had no 
great love for the extreme views and measures of 
Knox and his ministers. One by one her friends 
dropped away until Lord Seton and that ill-omened 
peer, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, were almost 
the only men of rank or influence that remained true 
to her cause. Under the name of the Lords of the 
Congregation the Protestant nobility advanced upon 
Edinburgh, occupied the city and then sat down be- 
fore Leith, blockading the French troops there. 

Grange appears to have joined the Congregation at 
about the time of the affair at Perth, and was proba- 
bly under arms in season to welcome the Lord James 
Stuart to the cause. For a time he appears to have 
been more aftive with his pen than with his sword, 
and certain it is that men were few in Scotland who 
could wield the gentler weapon with skill and efFe6l. 
In the spring of 1559 Knox was at St. Andrews, 
having just returned thither from another visit to 
Calvin in Geneva. He vvas joined in St. Andrews by 
Grange, and there, in the words of the preacher, 
they " entered into deep discourse." The steadily in- 
creasing strength of the Regent's French forces dis- 
turbed their peace of mind. To Knox their presence 
meant the giving over of the land to Antichrist and the 
delivery of thousands of souls to the pains of ever- 
lasting perdition. To Grange it meant the vassalage 
of Scotland to France, and ruinous and never-ending 
strife with "the auld enemy." "If England," ex- 
claimed Knox, " would foresee their ane commodity, 
yea if they did but consider the danger wherein they 
themselves did stand, they would not suffer us to 
perish in this quarrel, for France hath decreed no 
less the conquest of England than of Scotland." So 
Grange took his pen in hand, and his letters at this 

time 



IMi 



Sir milliam l^itfialD^, Knt. 33 

time give much insight into the posture and desires 
of the Congregation. On June twenty-third he writes 
to Cecil in London, "If ye suffer us to be over- 
thrown ye shall prepare a way for your own destruc- 
tion; if you will advisedly and friendly look upon us, 
Scotland will in turn be faithful to England to de- 
fend the liberties of the same." 

Again on July i, 1559, we find Grange writing to 
Sir Henry Percy from Edinburgh, where, he says 
with military exa6lness, the Congregation had ar- 
rived that day " by three of the clock ."" I assure you ," 
he says of his comrades, "you need not have them 
" in suspicion ; for they mean nothing but the refor- 
" mation of religion, which shortly throughout the 
" realm they will bring to pass. . . . The manner of 
"their proceeding in reformation is this; they pull 
" down all manner of friaries and some abbeys which 
" willingly receive not the Reformation ; as to parish 
" churches they cleanse them of images and all other 
" instruments ofidolatry and command thatnomasses 
" be said in them, in place thereof the book set forth 
" by godly King Edward is read in some churches. 
" They have never as yet meddled with a penny- 
" worth of that which pertains to the kirk ; but pre- 
" sently they will take orders through all the parts 
" where they dwell that all the fruits of the Abbeys 
" and other churches shall be kept and bestowed 
" upon the faithful ministers until such time as other 
" orders be taken. Some suppose the Queen seeing 
" no other remedy will follow their desire; which is 
" that a general Reformation be made throughout 
" the realm, conform to the pure word of God, and 
" the Frenchmen sent away. If her Grace will so do, 
" they will obey and serve her and annex the whole 
" revenue of the Abbeys to the Crown. If her Grace 
" will not be content, they will hear of no agree- 
" ment." There 



3+ 



The life and ^mt\^ of 



There is no record of protest by any of the lords 
or gentlemen of the Congregation against the a6ts 
of vandalism to which Grange refers. Even the more 
worldly sort like the Lord James Stuart and Douglas 
Earl of Morton seem to have accepted the formula of 
Knox that the way to be rid of rooks was to pull 
down their nests. No Southron army ever worked 
such havoc in Scotland as the hosts of the Congre- 
gation. St. Mungo'Sjin Glasgow, was happily spared, 
as was for the time the Cathedral of Elgin, that stately 
fane so fondly described as "the mirror of the land 
and the fair glory of the realm." But what the Eng- 
lishmen had left of Kelso and Dryburgh now fell by 
Scottish hands. Tall spires that had loomed as sacred 
landmarks for generations of pious souls came crash- 
ing down in dust and rubbish. The wind howled 
through broken belfries now silent forever. The bells 
of Melrose no longer sounded in the vale of Tweed ;* 
the sailor coasting the shores of Fife listened in vain 
for the sweet melody of St. Andrews' chimes. Pic- 
tures, carved woods, the sacred vestments, all the 
beautiful and glittering paraphernalia of the priestly 
orders served to feed bonfires throughout the king- 
dom. The sacred vessels of gold and silver were 
melted down, and their value found its way into the 
pockets and coffers of those who Grange inno- 
cently beHeved had not "meddled with a pennyworth 
of that which pertains to the kirk." Grange saw 
things through honest eyes, he heard with honest 
ears, and his faith in his colleagues was still high 
when he declared to Cecil "that the world shall see 
that a league made in the name of God hath another 
foundation and assurance than fa61:ions made by man 
for worldly commoditie." But even his enthusiasm 
could not blind him long to conditions as they really 
were. On July eighteenth we find him ruefully ad- 
mitting 



im 



Sir 2Htlliam i^ttfealtit^ Knt. 



35 



mitting to Cecil that "some of our number are poor 
and we fear corruption by money." 

Kirkaldy's correspondence was not in vain. Cecil 
instru6led Percy " to say unto him, that for his letter 
" I do privately thank him for so friendly a parti ci- 
" pation with me of such a matter ; and ye may as- 
" sure him, that rather than that realm should be un- 
" der foreign nation and power, oppressed and de- 
" prived of the ancient liberties thereto belonging, 
" and the nobility thereof, and specially such as at 
" this present seek to maintain the truth of the Chris- 
" tian religion, be expelled, the authority of England 
" would adventure with power and force to aid that 
" reabn against any such foreign invasion ; and, in- 
" deed, I dare also affirm, would be as sorry to see 
" that ancient nation to be overthrown and oppressed, 
" as this our own." The interest of England in ex- 
pelling the French and maintaining the Congrega- 
tion in Scotland is readily understood. In July, 1559, 
the brain of Henry II had been pierced by Montgom- 
ery's fatal lance, and as consort of Francis II, Mary 
Stuart now reigned as Queen of France. Under the 
pressure of her ambitious uncles she had assumed the 
arms and title of English Queen, and there were few 
good Catholics in Europe who did not regard her as 
the rightful successor of Mary Tudor. The ministers 
of Elizabeth could not be indifferent to Scottish affairs 
nor to the welfare of any fa61:ion that opposed the 
House of Guise. 

In the fall, then, of 1559 we find nearly the whole 
nobility of Scotland in arms against the Regent, and 
the French troops blockaded in Leith. Then William 
Maitland of Lethington, the most brilliant scholar, 
the brightest wit and the ablest diplomat of his day, 
abandoned the Regent and "rendered himself unto 
Maister Kircaldie, Laird of Grange." Maitland had 

declared 



36 The Life and i^eatlft of 

declared " that the mark he always shot at " was " the 
union of England and Scotland in perpetual amity," 
and the friendship which developed between Grange 
and himself doubtless had its root in a sense of polit- 
ical accord. The French troops at Leith, admirably 
trained and commanded, easily held at bay the rough 
chivalry of Scotland. A sum of money despatched from 
England was waylaid and seized by the Earl of Both- 
well, and the Congregation soon found itself in straits. 
It required but little skirmishing to convince Grange 
that the vassals of the Scottish peers were not the men 
to cope in open field with the best soldiers in Europe. 
The infantry of the Congregation was badly worsted 
in an encounter near Restalrig, and the Lord James 
Stuart was only saved from capture or worse by a 
whirlwind charge of Kirkaldy's Horse. Then fol- 
lowed the retreat of the whole army upon Stirling, 
and the Regent in exultation despatched Monsieur 
D'Oysel with a picked force to lay waste the sedi- 
tious Kingdom of Fife. This favoured distri61: so far 
removed from Border strife and Highland raids had 
grown rich and populous. Its ports were famous for 
their commerce, while its shores were studded with 
thrifty villages and the imposing castles of the no- 
bility and gentry. Marching by Linlithgow, D'Oysel 
crossed the Forth at Stirling bridge and pushed east- 
ward towards St. Andrews. He established head- 
quarters in the Castle of Wemyss, within whose 
bowers a few years hence the Queen of Scots was to 
be wooed and won by Henry Darnley. The French 
march was at first almost unopposed. Kirkaldy's 
house of Halyards beat off" an attack, but his village 
of Grange was put to the torch, while the old castle 
was first pillaged and then mined and shattered by 
gunpowder. "William Kirkaldy of Grange," says 
Calderwood, "the day after his house was demol- 
ished. 



Sir 2IllUiam i^ttfealDl?, Knt. 



37 



ished, sent a defiance to Monsieur D'Oysel and the 
rest of the French, declaring that to that hour he had 
used the French favourably ; he had saved their Hves, 
when he might have suffered their throats to have 
been cut. But now seeing they had met him with such 
rigour, willed them not to look for like favour again. 
As for Monsieur D'Oysel he bade say to him, he 
knew he would not get him to skirmish with, be- 
cause he knew he was but a coward. But it might be, 
he should requite him in full either in Scotland or 
France." Lord Ruthven and the Lord James Stuart, 
as well as Grange, were soon in the field. It was a bit- 
ter winter in Fife; the ice formed thick on the lochs, 
and the snow that lay deep on the land was whirled 
into impassable drifts by the rough winds that swept 
in from the sea or came roaring down from the 
Grampian Hills. Too weak to confront the French 
advance Kirkaldy kept the open country, and by day 
and night, guided often by the smoke or glare of 
wanton conflagrations, he pursued and harried his 
foe. Knox writes with enthusiasm to Cecil of the pru- 
dence and courage displayed by Grange. " They did 
" so valiantly that it passed all credibility ; for twenty 
" and one days they lay in their clothes ; their boots 
" never came off; they had skirmishing almost every 
" day, yea some days from morn until even. They 
" held the French so busy that for every horse they 
" slew in the Congregation, they lost four French sol- 
" diers. . . . They have casten down to the ground 
" the Laird of Grange's principal house called the 
** Grange and have spoiled his other places. God will 
" recompense him I doubt not, for in this cause and 
" since the beginning of this last trouble especially 
" he hath behaved himself so boldly as never man 
" of our realm hath deserved more praise. He hath 
" been in many dangers and yet God has delivered 

" him 



38 The Life and J^eatl^ of 

" him above mere expe6lations." 

But despite all resistance Monsieur D'Oysel forced 
his slow way toward St. Andrews. On the twenty- 
fourth of January, 1 560, he gained the promontory of 
Kincraigie, and his eye sweeping the grey expanse of 
the Firth descried eight ships of war making their 
way in from the sea. For the moment he hailed them 
as reinforcements from France, but when the leading 
ship displayed a broad standard with the red cross 
of England his illusions were dispelled. What he 
saw was Mr. Winter's English squadron, the first 
tangible response of Elizabeth to the appeals of the 
Congregation. The French retreat began at once. 
Betwixt the bitterness of the season and the energy 
of the Scots the indomitable qualities of the French 
were sorely tried. " The Laird of Grange," says Pits- 
cottie, " slew many of them ere they won Dumferm- 
line." A certain Captain Labattie, " ane verrie manlie 
sharp man," was cut off from the main body near 
Kinghorn, and while his men were slain or captured 
he died an honourable death on the sword of the 
Master of Lindesay. At Tullibody, Grange destroyed 
the bridge over the Devon. The French were obliged 
to bivouack all night in the snows, but at dawn they 
stripped the village church of its rafters and re- 
bridged and crossed the stream. Jaded, bleeding and 
in sad plight the remnants of D'Oysel's column at 
last reentered Edinburgh, but before this Grange 
had been shot through the body " and the bullet did 
stick in one of his ribs."' Gunshot wounds in the six- 
teenth century were unpleasant affairs, and it is sur- 
prising to find Grange again a61:ively engaged in the 
field in the early spring of 1560. When he rejoined 
the camp he found the Congregation reinforced by 
an English army under Lord Grey de Wilton and 
engaged in laying siege to the French in their de- 
fences 



Sir miUiant i^irfialDt, Knt. 



39 



fences at Leith. Grange found also that the Queen 
of England had agreed to aid the Lords upon most 
surprising conditions. They would retain her favour 
only so long as they remained loyal to their rightful 
Princess. She drew the sword for Religion, but not 
against the Queen of Scots. 

The sad-hearted Regent was received into Edin- 
burgh Castle by Lord Erskine, who held a somewhat 
neutral position in these stormy days. On April thir- 
tieth Sir Henry Percy wrote to Cecil from the camp 
before Leith extolling the military services of the 
Laird of Grange. The English cannon silenced the 
French guns in St. Anthony's Tower and partially 
breached the walls. Lord Grey prepared for an assault, 
and on May sixth we find Sadler, Crofts and Grange 
critically examining the ground before the French 
defences. Grange promptly decided against the pro- 
je6l. In his judgement the French lines were too 
strong and the allies too inexperienced to justify such 
vigorous taftics. Crofts was to inform the Lord Grey 
of their decision, while Sadler and Grange returned 
to the camp. But in some way a misunderstanding 
arose. In the early morning of May seventh the as- 
sault was made. Not only did Crofts fail in delivering 
his message, but he w^as not on hand with his own di- 
vision to support the attack. The scaling ladders were 
found to be six feet short, a fa6l that Knox ascribed 
to their being made in St. Giles Church to the cur- 
tailment of the accustomed preaching. "God would 
not suffer such contempt of the Word to be long un- 
punished." The attackers were beaten back with 
great slaughter. From the window of her sick-room 
in the Castle the Regent watched the sun rise out of 
the Firth, and in the red glow of the dawn she saw 
the lilies of France wave in triumph above the ram- 
parts of Leith. Lord Grey and the leaders of the Con- 
gregation 



40 The life and J^eatlft of 

gregation were much alarmed and urgent messages 
were despatched into England for reinforcements. 
There was much parleying between the opposing 
commanders, and in writing to the Duke of Norfolk 
under date of May thirteenth, Lord Grey refers to a 
conference between two honest men, — that stanch old 
Catholic peer, Lord Seton, and the Laird of Grange. 
The position of the French, despite their success 
just mentioned, was most critical. Winter's squadron 
held the sea, while the power of two kingdoms lay 
encamped against them. France was racked by in- 
ternal dissensions, and was coming to think that the 
services of her veterans were misspent beyond the 
seas. Negotiations were soon under way to establish 
a permanent peace, and in the early summer of 1560 
the representatives of England, France and Scotland 
concluded that remarkable pa6f known as the Treaty 
of Edinburgh. The French troops sailed for France 
in their own galleys, and the English soldiery re- 
crossed the Border. While the treaty required the 
sanation of Francis and Mary to make it valid, and 
while that sanftion was never obtained, its provisions 
still remained in efFe6l and the Scottish Reformation 
became an accomplished fadf . In the meantime, Mary 
of Guise had passed away and had made a right 
Christian and queenly ending. She requested the 
presence of the leaders of the Congregation, and as 
they stood about her regretted the errors she had 
made and her overmuch dependence upon her kins- 
men in France. With a beautiful courtesy she even 
listened to the upbraiding and spiritual admonitions of 
Master Willcock, a Reformed preacher, and then be- 
sought the loyalty of all toward her youthful daugh- 
ter, the Oueen of the realm. " She embraced and with 
a smiling countenance kissed the nobles one by one, 
and to those of inferior rank who stood by she gave 

her 



Sir miUiam i^ttfialDt, Knt. 41 

her hand to kiss as a token of her kindness and dying 
charity." She was a princess of noble and generous 
chara6ler. It was Sir Walter Scott who said "that 
her talents and virtues were her own ; her errors and 
faults the effe6l of her deference to the advice of 
others." 

The Scottish Estates met in July, 1560, the juris- 
di6lion of the Catholic clergy was abolished and the 
celebration of the mass prohibited under extreme 
penalties. So far the godly were in accord, but now 
trouble began. The preachers urged that the Church 
revenues should be devoted to their proper support, 
to the cause of education and for the help of the poor 
within the realm. The Scottish nobles saw only maud- 
lin sentiment in a measure that had so little regard 
for them, and put aside the proje6l as "a devout 
imagination, a well meant but visionary system which 
could not possibly be carried into execution." Mait- 
land of Lethington was much amused at the attitude 
of the clergy, and in his chara6leristic fashion de- 
sired to know "whether the nobility were now to 
turn hod bearers to toil at the building of the Kirk." 
Knox was shocked and grieved at the rapacity of 
these greedy peers. "Who would have thought," 
he groaned, "that when Joseph ruled in Egypt, his 
brethren would have come down thither for corn and 
returned with sacks empty.'' Men would have thought 
that Pharaoh's storehouse would have been emptied 
ere the sons of Jacob were placed in risk of starving 
for hunger." 

In the midst of this plundering Grange appears 
to have maintained clean hands. He obtained the 
Castle of Wester-Kinghorn to replace the loss of the 
Grange, but this was a small recompense for the ser- 
vices he had rendered and the sacrifices he had 
made. 

'BOOK^ III 



"BOOK^III 



"BOOt^III 




WO^ ^^X^^iWQXi reigned in^Q,OT\.K^\i and how 
<©ran00 accused her of Evil 'Doing ; how he bore himself 
at CARBERRY HILL and at LANGSIDE FIELD, 
and how he afterwards pursued the dBatl Of T6Otf)tP0U 
/»^ Me' NORTHERN SEAS. 

EFORE the close of the year 
1560 that gentle soul the King 
of France had breathed his last 
in Paris. This event not only left 
the Queen of Scots a widow, but 
destroyed the supremacy of her 
ambitious uncles at the French 
Court. In view of this discomfi- 
ture of the Princes of Lorraine the Scottish Parlia- 
ment thought it safe to invite their rightful Princess 
to return to the land of her ancestors. The Lord 
James Stuart was despatched to Paris to bring about 
this happy event, and as a result of his mission we 
find the widowed Queen in the early summer ap- 
plying to her "dear sister" of England for a safe- 
condu6l to pass into Scotland. The Treaty of Edin- 
burgh was still unratified, the claim to the English 
throne had not been withdrawn, and the safe-con- 
du(5l desired by the Scottish Queen was never 
granted. "Neither those in Scotland, nor we here," 
declared Cecil," do like her going home. The Queen's 
Majesty hath three ships in the North Seas to pre- 
serve the fisheries from pirates. I think they will 
be sorry to see her pass." Randolph writing to Cecil 

from 



46 The Life and J^eatl^ of 

from Edinburgh states that the Lord James, the Earl 
of Morton and Maitland of Lethington" wish as your 
honour doth, that she might be stayed yet for a space ; 
and if it were not for their obedience' sake some of 
them care not though they never saw her face." 

But despite the lack of a safe-condu6f and those ships 
that would be sorry to see her pass, the month of 
August found the Queen on board a French galleon 
that ploughed its way through summer seas toward 
the land of her birth. The grey mists settled down 
upon the waste of quiet waters, and shrouded in their 
prote6ling haze the Royal ships passed safely to their 
anchorage at Leith. The Queen's escort had hailed 
the fog as the a6f of Heaven which preserved her 
from watchful enemies. John Knox also saw in it the 
hand of God, but to him the skies were overcast and 
the air was dim to mark the divine displeasure. " That 
forewarning God gave unto us, but alas! the most 
part were blind." However lukewarm the nobility, 
the common people received their Queen with much 
delight. Fires flashed out on the high lands of Lo- 
thian and Fife, and a motley crowd was on hand to 
accompany the Royal cortege to Edinburgh. There 
were pageants in which the Church of Rome was de- 
rided, and for successive nights companies of Knox's 
godly youths with three-stringed instruments per- 
formed fearful serenades beneath the windows of 
Holyrood. The great nobles made their way to the 
capital to pay their doubtful court. The unstable Cha- 
telherault,* the rough and crafty Morton, the savage 
Lindesay, the fanatical Glencairn, honest Seton, the 
rash and boastful Both well, thronged the town with 
their armed retainers. The Queen's priests celebrating 
the mass in the palace chapel barely escaped death 
by the sword of the Master of Lindesay. The zeal- 
ous baron was restrained by the Lord James whose 

blade 



Sir mtUtattT i^trfealD^, Knt. 



M 



blade was also drawn. Knox lamented this weakness 
in the brother of the Oueen. Was not one mass more 
dangerous to the realm than a hostile invasion by ten 
thousand men? 

And now for a time the name of Grange drops out 
of the correspondence and memoirs of the day, for 
there was a succession of peaceful months when men 
of the sword could doff their armour. He was doubt- 
less much at Court during the first year after the 
Oueen's return, for the Lord James Stuart was his 
bosom friend, and it was upon her brother at this 
time that the Queen leaned much for counsel and 
support. The Lord James was granted the Earldom 
of Mar, and we can fancy the honest satisfa6lion of 
Grange at the well earned honour that had come to 
his prudent and brilliant friend. In Edinburgh Grange 
met again the Due D'Aumale, his old friend and ad- 
mirer who had accompanied the Queen from France, 
and also D'Elboeuf and D'Amville, Admirals in the 
French service, whom he had known at the Court of 
Henry IL D'Elboeuf and D'Aumale were uncles of 
the Queen, and the former consorted much with the 
Earl of Bothwell, finding in him a fit companion with 
whom to disturb the precarious peace of the capital 
and set St. Giles bell a-ringing. In keen contrast to 
D'Elboeuf, the courtly Brantome was in Edinburgh, 
drawn thither from the allurements of Paris by the 
charms of the youthful Queen. We can fancy that 
Grange was not at ease with him, and indeed there 
were few at this rough Court, save Lethington, who 
could reciprocate his fine phrases or admire his pol- 
ished wit. Holyrood had become transformed, and 
what with the tapestries and rich adornments she 
had brought from France, the Queen had made her 
cramped and low-ceiled rooms suggestive of the more 
spacious and splendid interiorsof theFrenchchateaux. 

The 



mmmmmm 



48 The Life and J^eatl^ of 

The French customs and diversions introduced by the 
Queen drove Knox to distra6lion. "So soon as ever 
her French fillocks, fiddles and others of that band 
got the house alone there might be seen skipping not 
very comely for honest women. " He laboured fiercely 
with the youthful Princess, and "knocked so hard at 
her heart" that she shed tears. He assured her that 
her judgement could not make "that Roman harlot 
the true spouse of Christ," and roundly condemned 
her priests as "Baal's shaven sort." Lethington did 
not approve of his harsh methods. " I could wish," he 
wrote, " that he would deal more gently with her but 
surely in her comporting with him she doth declare a 
wisdom far exceeding her age." Knox saw porten- 
tous visions in the misty air, and in the roaring of the 
gale heard the wrathful complaint of God. But at the 
palace they were blind. "The Queen and our court 
made merry ! " 

The Queen sate daily among her council with her 
gold embroidery in hand, and in the mornings she 
was wont to read Livy or Virgil with Master George 
Buchanan whom Grange had known in Paris. When 
the Court rode out or followed the chase the people 
exclaimed, " God bless her fair face ! " But Knox saw 
naught of this and inveighed against " the superfluity 
of clothes, the targeting of their tails and the rest of 
their vanity." At night the lights streaming from the 
palace windows were marked with misgiving by 
pious eyes, and the voluptuous music of the dance 
that floated out upon the midnight air fell upon godly 
ears. It is to be feared that Mar and Grange both 
bore some modest part in these vanities, for they 
knew well the manners of polite courts and how to 
carry a good figure in a galliard. As for Lethington 
he was restrained by no religious consideration; he 
was unconvinced in an age of theological fanaticism. 

Moreover, 



Sir 22IiUiant l^trfealDi^, Km. 



49 



Moreover, his politic heart had become ensnared. He 
had fallen viftim to the bright eyes of one of the 
Queen's Maries and followed Mary Fleming wher- 
ever she chose to lead him.-f It is likely that he fol- 
lowed her to mass. It was gorgeously celebrated in 
the palace chapel, and the choir had gained the ser- 
vices of a rare musician in the secretary of the Ambas- 
sador from Piedmont, who had recently arrived in 
Scotland. The Queen and her ladies heard with rap- 
ture, above the swelling harmony of the chant, the 
rich melodious voice of David Rizzio. 

In the late summer of 1 562, the Queen entered upon 
that "cumbersome, painful, and marvellous long" 
journey to the North which was to result in the hu- 
miliation of the House of Gordon. The Earl of Mar 
accompanied her with an armed force, and in her suite 
was Mr. Randolph, the English Envoy, whose facile 
pen was to preserve for all time the pi6lure of the 
joyous Queen riding fearless and free over hill and 
moor. After the first tragedy at Inverness the Queen 
found herself in the midst of war. It was clear that old 
Huntley, hopeless of pardon, would defend his strong 
places to the last. In this predicament the Queen sent 
into Fife for the Laird of Grange, and ordered the 
cannon at Aberdeen to be made ready. Randolph re- 
cords these fa6ls under date of September thirtieth. 
Kirkaldy must have spurred hard in obedience to the 
Royal summons for it was he who, on the ninth of Oc- 
tober, made a dash upon Huntley's castle of Strath- 
bogie, where the said Earl barely escaped capture 
by scrambling "over a low wall without a boot or a 
sword." Grange was also present at the a6lion a few 
days later where Huntley lost his life. 

In September the Earl of Mar had been created Earl 
of Murray, the title by which he is best known in Scot- 
tish history, and it is clear that he was in high favour 

with 



50 The life and j^eatlft of 

with the Queen. As for Grange he was as loyal a sub- 
je6t as his devotion to the English alliance would per- 
mit, and in the rise of the Lord James to the Earl- 
dom of Murray he had been drawn closer to the Court 
and to the person of his Sovereign. There was nothing 
ambiguous in his attitude at this time. His career was 
known to the Queen, and he had never expressed re- 
gret for the part he bore against her mother in the 
wars of the Congregation. To attempt to follow the 
course and examine the motives of the Earl of Mur- 
ray during the seven years that his sister reigned in 
Scotland is a hard and intricate task, but Grange had 
neither taste nor talent for the subtle courses which 
his friend pursued. He was a soldier who could give 
and take hard blows in the open, but he was dull and 
heavy in finding indireft ways to an end. It is doubt- 
ful if in the early sixties he had realized the hopes of 
the Baron, his father. The University of Paris had 
failed to equip him as "a man of wit and policy" of 
the sort with which the slaughtered Beatoun was wont 
to surround himself. How many of the intrigues and 
cabals of the day were intelligible to Grange it is im- 
possible to say. Murray and Lethington could hardly 
afford to be frank with each other, and Grange was 
too outspoken to be trusted with the full confidence 
of either. 

Early in i ^6s the first hints were given that Henry 
Darnley was to be raised to the throne of Scotland. 
In July of that year the nuptials were celebrated, and 
one may still read the entry in the Canongate Register 
of Marriages, " Henry and Marie, Kyng and Qweine 
of Scotis." Murray had laboured in vain against the 
proje6f , was not present at the wedding, and in Oc- 
tober we find him with Chatelherault,Argyle, Rothes, 
Glencairn and Grange in open rebellion against the 
Queen. Grange swept into Edinburgh at the head 

of 



Sir milliam i^trfealDt, Km. 



51 



of a thousand horse, but found the burghers stolidly 
loyal. Then follows the spe6lacle of the best soldiers 
in Scotland driven in wild flight before the enthusi- 
astic power which had rallied to the Queen on her 
first call to arms. At Hamilton, Captain Brick well, an 
officer in the English service, finds Murray, Grange 
and their friends, and describes them as " very pen- 
sive and dismayed men, desperate altogether of their 
well doing." It is clear from Bedford's correspond- 
ence with Cecil that Elizabeth was in Murray's con- 
fidence, and that he looked to her for support in the 
measures undertaken. To Brick well he complained 
of the "littell help" received. Murray, Rothes and 
Glencairn retired into England, and late in 06fober 
we find Grange writing from Alnwick to the Earl 
of Leicester, pleading for support in men and ships. 
With the failure of this revolt, derisively known in 
Scotland as the Run-about Raid, the English Queen 
was prompt to disavow all knowledge of the matter. 
She summoned Murray before her and he, in the 
presence of the French Envoy, acquitted her of any 
knowledge or share in the enterprise. Murray was 
a brave man and a shrewd courtier, and we find him 
here in the most pitiable plight of his career. 

In the meantime Rizzio had run his course at the 
Scottish Court. Darnley had thrown oflfthe mask and 
stood revealed to all in the full measure of his be- 
sotted insolence. The Queen had determined that at 
the next session of Parliament the Run-about Raid- 
ers should suffer the forfeiture of their estates, a 
policy that found small favour with Morton, Ruth- 
ven, Lethington and other prominent men in the 
realm. Rizzio was said to approve the Queen's course. 
Darnley was told that Rizzio did argue with the 
Queen against granting him the Crown Matrimonial. 
With dull ears the tipsy youth had heard from crafty 

lips 



52 The life and ^eatJ^ of 

lips that the exiled lords favoured his claims upon 
the Crown, and that Rizzio was more intimate with 
the Queen than was fitting. On the ninth of March, 
1566, there was a frightful tragedy in Holyrood. 
Rizzio, in the very presence of the Queen, was done 
to death by the dirks of Scottish nobles, and when 
his mangled corpse was thrown aside for burial the 
King's dagger was still sticking in its side. On the 
day after the murder Murray and Grange rode down 
the High Street of Edinburgh, and repaired to the 
palace to wait upon the King. Murray was sum- 
moned to the Queen's presence, and Grange beheld 
the unhappy woman as she sobbed upon the breast 
of her brother and lamented that he had not been 
by to prote61: her from such cruel handling. Did 
Grange know of the plot against Signor David.? The 
murder was but an episode in a broad conspiracy in 
which the nobility and the Kirk itself appear to have 
been engaged. Randolph told Cecil on March sixth 
that Murray and Grange were privy " to a matter of 
no small consequence that was impending in Scot- 
land. "On March eighth Bedford announces that Mur- 
ray is homeward bound, will reach Edinburgh on the 
tenth, and that " the thing which is intended shall be 
executed before his coming there." Upon these state- 
ments, fortified by his arrival at Holyrood on the day 
predi6led, rests the case against Murray and against 
Grange as well. But this evidence is not conclusive, 
and we can only conje6f ure as to the extent of Mur- 
ray's fore-knowledge of the palace tragedy and as to 
whether Grange would have stood in his confidence 
in such a matter. Still, as in the case of Beatoun's 
murder, there is small trace of horror or disapproval 
in the contemporary accounts of the event. To the 
preachers it seemed '*a just a6l and most worthy of 
all praise." 

Upon 



Sir mniiam MtfialDt, Knt. 53 

Upon Murray's revolt the Queen had restored the 
Earldom of Huntley to the Lord Gordon, and to 
strengthen her cause had recalled from exile the 
Earl of Bothwell. This brawling, foul-mouthed peer 
had displayed a loyalty to the Crown of which 
Murray, Lethington and Grange seemed incapable. 
His Protestantism was of the lukewarm sort and it 
had never tempered his hatred of "the auld enemy." 
In the wars of the Congregation we have seen how 
his waylaying of the English gold had brought the 
godly to confusion at Leith. On the night of Rizzio's 
murder Bothwell was housed within the palace. He 
crossed swords with Morton's vassals in the close, 
and finally escaped from one of the palace windows 
by means of cords. He rode hard to Dunbar and 
raised the Borderside for the Queen. On the twelfth, 
two days after Murray's return, the Queen escaped 
from Holy rood, and on reaching Dunbar found her- 
self at the head of a powerful force. The feeble and 
repentant King was with her, and she had drawn 
from him the full list of his colleagues in the con- 
spiracy. Again the enemies of the Queen took to 
flight. Morton, Ruthven and Lindesay crossed the 
Border, and John Knox himself departed for Ayr- 
shire in much haste. The Queen reentered her capi- 
tal in triumph, escorted by a brave array of Hep- 
burns and Gordons. Murray and Grange were 
pardoned and the former restored to favour. Both- 
well liad proved a friend in need. He was confirmed 
in his offices of Lord High Admiral of Scotland and 
Lieutenant of the Southern Border. He misdoubted 
Murray, however, and retired for a time to his Castle 
of Hermitage, in Liddesdale, where he indulged his 
restless energy in wild rides over the broken coun- 
try and in fierce scuffles with "stark moss-troopers 
and arrant thieves." 

After 



54 The tilt and ^t^i\^ of 

After the return of the Court to Edinburgh, Grange 
appears to have retired into Fifeshire. The Queen 
repaired to Edinburgh Castle for her lying-in, and it 
was on the morning of the nineteenth of June that 
Mistress Mary Beatoun crept down the narrow stair 
and bade Sir James Melville ride to London with 
the glad tidings that the Queen of Scots was "the 
mother of a fair son." The Reverend James Melville 
has recorded his boyish recolle61;ion of passing "to 
the head of the muir to see the fire of joy burning 
upon the steeple head of Montrose at the day of the 
King's birth." From his Castle of Wester-Kinghorn, 
Grange must have seen the red glare on Arthur's 
Seat and the flaring of beacon-fires all along the 
Haddington shore from Leith to Berwick Law. 

During his seclusion in Fife, Grange doubtless heard 
enough to convince him that the Court was no longer 
merry, and that the Queen would have done well 
had she listened to her brother when he warned her 
against mating with Henry Darnley. It was in De- 
cember of this year that Huntley ,Argyle, Lethington 
and Sir James Balfour agreed at Craigmillar "that 
such a young fool and proud tyrant should not reign 
nor bear rule over them, and that for divers causes 
he should be put ofFby one way or other." The young 
fool had indeed become insufferable to every one 
with whom he came in conta6l. He was again pee- 
vish and sullen. He was not present at the christen- 
ing at Stirling, and when the Queen graced that 
happy occasion by extending full pardon to the Riz- 
zio conspirators, he was much disturbed. He had 
betrayed them all and they were vengeful men. On 
January ninth, 1567, Bedford informs Cecil that 
Darnley is with his father at Glasgow, " and there 
hes full of the small pox," On the twentieth of Jan- 
uary the Queen left Edinburgh for Glasgow to visit 

the 



Sir milliam iSfrfialt)^, Knt. 55 

the King. The Lord Bothwell as Sheriff of Lothian 
conduced her as far as the Calendar, a place of Lord 
Livingstone's near Falkirk. On the twenty-seventh, 
Darnley, convalescent and repentant, was brought 
by the Queen from Glasgow to the Calendar on his 
way to Edinburgh. On the thirtieth the Royal party 
approached the capital and was met a little east of 
Linlithgow by the Earl of Bothwell. "It was first 
designed in Glasgow that the King should have lain 
in Craigmillar but because he had no will thereof 
the purpose was altered, and conclusion taken that 
he should lie beside the Kirk of Field." 

The house fitted up for the patient was the prop- 
erty of Sir James Balfour. The Queen passed daily 
with the gentlemen and ladies of her court to visit 
her sad and docile consort. On Sunday, February 
ninth, the nobility was strongly represented in Edin- 
burgh, but the Earl of Murray left town in the 
morning bound for Fife upon important business. At 
four o'clock on the afternoon of that day the Queen 
attended the banquet given by the Bishop of Argyle 
to the departing Ambassador of Savoy. From there 
with all the noble company, save Bothwell, who 
slipped away, she proceeded to Balfour's house to 
wait upon the King. As darkness fell the lights 
twinkled merrily in Holyrood, for there was mask- 
ing and dancing to grace the marriage of Sebastian. 
The night deepens and the Queen is still with the 
King, but at eleven o'clock there is a glimpse of" light 
torches" as "the Queen's Grace" passes along the 
Black friars Wynd. Shortly after midnight Holyrood 
grows dark and deep gloom settles upon the town, 
save for a single light burning in the window of the 
Archbishop Hamilton, over against the Kirk of Field. 

About three hours before dawn there is "a blast 
and crack ; " a ruddy glow flashes in the air. Houses 

tremble 



56 The Life and ji^eatl^ of 

tremble and the sleeping town awakes. The light 
in the Archbishop's window goes out. Then the bell 
of St. Giles booms upon the air, and again there is the 
flashing of torches in the Blackfriars Wynd as Lord 
Bothwell hurries toward the Kirk of Field with the 
palace guards. Balfour's house is found wrecked to 
its foundation stone, and that "noble and mighty 
Prince, Henry King of Scotland, husband to our 
sovereign lady," has ended his brief and wicked 
life. 

How the Earl of Bothwell was accused of murder 
" by placards privily affixed on the public places of 
the Kirk of Edinburgh," how the Earl of Lennox be- 
sought the Queen to bring the slayer of his son to jus- 
tice, and how Bothwell did in April stand trial for the 
crime, are recounted in all the histories of the day. 
The assize was held on April twelfth and Bothwell 
was acquitted of any share in the King's murder. 
Lennox was not present. He was forbidden to enter 
the town with more than six followers, and finding 
his enemies in great force he feared for his life, and 
withdrew to Stirling. It was doubtless a fine sight 
on this fateful day to see Bothwell surrounded by 
his arquebusiers, and followed by some four thou- 
sand gentlemen, pass "with a merry and a lusty 
shout" to the Tolbooth. It was just a week from the 
" cleansing " of Bothwell to that pi6luresque supper 
in Ainslie's Tavern whereat the great nobles of the 
realm signed a band, "upoh their Honours and Fi- 
delity obliging and promising to set forward the 
marriage betwixt her Highness, and the noble and 
mighty Lord, James, Earl Bothwell." 

" The Earl of Murray," says Melville, " did foresee 
the great trouble likely to ensue," and departed for 
France only a few days before the Bothwell trial. 
Grange on the other hand regarded the wild rumours 

from 



Sir mtlliam i^itfealD^, Knt. 57 

from the capital as a call to aftion. He was probably 
present at the funeral of King Henry, and doubtless 
heard "the merry and lusty shout" which greeted 
Both well as he rode to trial. In these days of trick- 
ery and terror, when a sense of guilt and danger bore 
heavily upon the minds of a score of Scottish nobles, 
we find Grange alone a6ling with decision for the 
achievement of an honest end. Murray's wisdom 
was not now at his command, and Lethington of the 
ready wit was with the Queen, He turned for help 
and counsel to his old friends in England, and in his 
letter to Bedford dated April twentieth, we find his 
conception of the crisis stated with a martial frank- 
ness. " It may please your lordship to let me under- 
" stand what will be your Sovereign's part concern- 
" ing the late murder committed among us ; for albeit 
" her Majesty was slow in all our last trouble, and 
" therefore lost that favour we did bear unto her, 
" yet nevertheless if her Majesty will pursue for the 
" revenge of the late murder, I dare assure your 
" Lordship she shall win thereby all the hearts of all 
" the best in Scotland again. Further, if we under- 
" stood that her Majesty would assist us and favour 
" us, we should not be long in revenging of this 
" murder. The Queen caused ratify in Parliament 
" the cleansing of Both well. She intends to take the 
" Prince out of the Earl of Mar's hands, and put him 
" into Bothwell's keeping, who murdered the King 
" his father. The same night the Parliament was dis- 
" solved. Both well called the most part of the noble- 
" men to supper, for to desire of them their promise 
" in writing and consent for the Queen's marriage, 
" which he will obtain ; for she has said that she cares 
" not to lose France, England, and her own country 
" for him, and shall go with him to the worlds end in 
" a white petticoat ere she leave him. Yea, she is so 

"far 



The Life and J^tatlft of 



" far past all shame, that she has caused make an 
" A6t of Parliament against all those that shall set 
" up any writing that shall speak anything of him. 
" Whatever is unhonest reigns presently in this 
" Court. God deliver them from their evil." 

Events moved rapidly at the Scottish capital, and on 
April twenty-fourth, five days after the supper at 
Ainslie's Tavern, Bothwell met the Oueen as she 
passed from Linlithgow toward Edinburgh. He had 
an armed force at his command, and with or without 
her consent the Queen was conveyed to Dunbar 
Castle.J 

Lethington was taken with the Queen in this affair, 
and how Grange regarded it is shown by his writ- 
ing to Bedford under date of April twenty-sixth : 
" This Queen will never cease until such time as 
" she hath wrecked all the honest men of this realm. 
" She was minded to cause Bothwell seize her, to 
" the end that she may the sooner end the marriage 
" whilk she promised before she caused Bothwell 
" murder her husband. There are many that would 
" revenge the murder, but they fear your mistress. 
" I am so suited, too, to enterprise the revenge, that 
" I must either take it upon hand, or else I maun leave 
" the country, whilk I am determined to do if I can 
" obtain licence. But Bothwell is minded to cut me off, 
" if he may, ere I obtain it, and is returned out of 
" Stirling to Edinburgh. She proposes to take the 
" Prince out of the Earl of Mar's hands, and put 
" him in his hands that murdered his father, as I writ 
" in my last. I pray your lordship let me know what 
" your mistress will do; for if we seek France, we 
" may find favour at their hands; but I would rather 
" persuade to lean to England. This meikle in haste." 

The energy and purpose of Grange had become 
infe6lious. The nobles gradually drew together, the 

honest 



Sir maiiam iSirfialDi?^ Km. 59 

honest sort to punish Bothwell and preserve the 
Queen and Prince; the guilty because they saw an 
opportunity to crush that overbearing man who held 
their tarnished reputations at his command. By the 
first week in May the very men who had sworn to 
support Bothwell in Darnley's murder, and to uphold 
him in his suit for the hand of the Queen, are buc- 
kling on their armour to rid the land of so foul a mis- 
creant. 

At this time Sir James Balfour was governor of 
Edinburgh Castle. He had been placed there by Both- 
well, but Sir James Melville besought him to hold it 
free from Bothwell's influence as a possible refuge 
for the Oueen and Prince. Balfour hesitated, stand- 
ing much in dread of the strong Border peer, but 
finally yielded to Melville's urgency on condition 
" that the Laird of Grange would promise to be his 
prote6lor in case the nobility might alter upon him." 
Grange agreed to this condition, and Balfour lightly 
betrayed his trust. 

On the fifteenth day of May the Queen married 
Bothwell, whom she had already created Duke of 
Orkney. Morton, Home, Lindesay and Grange now 
took the field, and by a rapid night march narrowly 
missed capturing the Duke as he lay at Borthwick 
Castle. They then moved upon Edinburgh, and when 
Huntley offered resistance in the King's name, they 
battered in St. Mary's Port and took forcible pos- 
session. They were now joined by Glencairn, Athol 
and Ruthven, while Lethington also came over to 
them, being in great fear of his life from the Duke 
of Orkney. On the fifteenth of June they moved 
eastward through Musselburgh, and came upon the 
Royal army as it lay upon the upper slopes of Car- 
berry Hill. Grange, who commanded the Horse upon 
his side, promptly seized a position that threatened 

the 



6o The Mit and J^Catl^ of 

the flank and rear of the Royal army. "He is one 
of the best warriors among our adversaries," was 
the comment of Bothwell. Du Croc, the French Am- 
bassador, laboured vainly throughout the morning to 
arrange a peace. Bothwell was splendid on horse- 
back and looked "a great commander." Though his 
army comprised few men of note save Seton, whose 
sword was always at the disposal of the Stuarts, and 
though half his soldiers were disloyal, yet he spoke 
with great confidence and his bearing was gay and 
bold. The Queen, arrayed "unqueenly" in short 
jacket and bright red skirt, rode her palfrey apart. 
The day was warm. The sea and sky melted together 
in the summer haze, the heat shimmered in the low 
valley of the Esk where the Lords were drawn up 
in martial array. Grange in his post of vantage was 
a grim menace to the Royal cause. The Queen had 
much confidence in his honour. She dreaded blood- 
shed, and Du Croc, hopeless of peace, had left the 
field. Here, in the words of Sir James Melville, is 
what took place : 

"When the Queen understood that the Laird of 
" Grange was chief of that Company of Horse-men, 
" she sent the Laird of Ormistoun to desire him to 
" come and speak with her under surety, which he 
" did after he had acquainted the Lords with her de- 
" sire, and had obtained their permission. As he was 
"speaking with her Majesty the Earl of Bothwell 
" had appointed a Soldier to shoot him, until theQueen 
" gave a cry, and said that he would not do her that 
" shame, seeing she had promised that he should 
" come and return safely. Grange was declaring un- 
" to the Queen that all of them were ready to honour 
" and serve her, upon condition that she would aban- 
" don the Earl of Bothwell, who had murthered her 
" husband, and could not be a Husband unto her, who 

"had 



Sir muiiam i^irfealti^, Knt. 6i 

" had but lately married the Earl of Huntley's Sister. 
" The Earl of Bothwell hearkened and heard part of 
" this language, and offered the Combat to any who 
" would maintain that he had murthered the King. 
" The Laird of Grange promised to send him an an- 
" swer shortly thereunto. So he took his leave of the 
" Queen, and went down the Hill to the Lords, who 
" were content that the Laird of Grange should fight 
" with him in that quarrel. For he first offered him- 
" self, and acquainted Bothwell that he would fight 
" with him upon that quarrel. The Earl of Bothwell 
" answered, That he was neither Earl, nor Lord, but 
" a Baron, and so was not his equal. The like answer 
" made he to Tullibardine. Then my Lord Lindesay 
" offered to fight him, which he could not well re- 
" fuse, but his heart failed him, and he grew cold 
" in the business. Then the Oueen sent ae^ain for the 
" Laird of Grange and said to him, that if the Lords 
" would do as he had spoken to her she should put 
" away the Earl of Bothwell, and come unto them. 
" Whereupon he asked the Lords if he might in their 
" name make her Majesty that promise, which they 
" commissioned him to do. Then he rode up again, 
" and saw the Earl of Bothwell part, and came down 
" again and assured the Lords thereof. They de- 
" sired him to go up the Hill again, and receive the 
" Queen, who met him, and said, ' Laird of Grange, 
" I render myself unto you, upon the conditions you 
" rehearsed unto me in the name of the Lords.' 
"Whereupon she gave him her hand, which he 
" kissed, leading her Majesty's horse by the bridle 
" down the Hill unto the Lords, who came forward 
" and met her." 

There is a quaint contemporaneous pi6ture, painted 
for the Earl of Lennox, that gives a crude idea of 
the field of Carberry and shows the opposing arma- 
ments 



62 The Life and J^eatlft of 

ments drawn up in battle array. The Queen is rid- 
ing down the hill toward the Lords and Grange 
walks on foot by her side, with uncovered head. 

The sun was westering when Bothwell galloped 
almost unattended from the field, and the evening 
shadows were creeping down the hillsides as the 
principal Lords moved forward to receive the Queen. 
There was some interchange of gracious and loyal 
phrases, but the march to Edinburgh had hardly 
begun when the rough soldiers began to crowd 
about their Sovereign and to fill the air with deri- 
sive shouts and foul epithets. "The nobility," we 
are told, "well allowed of this," but Grange rode 
in to her side, "drew his sword and struck at such 
as did speak irreverent language." In the dark- 
ness the tumultuous procession entered the narrow 
wynds of the capital, the rabble joining in the uproar 
and disorder. The Queen was detained in the Pro- 
vost's house, from the windows of which she made 
frenzied appeals to her persecutors. Grange was 
furious. He stormed at his colleagues and threatened 
to abandon their perjured cause. Betwixt the rav- 
ings of the Queen and the wrath of Grange, the 
Scottish peerage was hard put to it. Some whispered 
that the Queen's face had bewitched the best sol- 
dier in Scotland. Toward midnight, just at the crisis 
of the matter, when the defe6lion of Grange seemed 
certain, it was reported among the Lords that a let- 
ter from the Queen to Bothwell had just been de- 
livered into their hands. Who produced it, or whether 
it really was displayed is not clear, but there were 
some high and mighty peers who declared they had 
seen it with the ink still damp, — that it had been 
written within the hour and that the infatuated wo- 
man had styled the Earl " her dear heart, whom she 
would never forget nor abandon." This is the only 

appearance 



Sir mtlliam iattfealD^, Knt. 63 

appearance in history of this most timely letter. It was 
not among the mass of dociuTientary evidence that in 
later years was produced against the Queen, nor do 
we find it alluded to again. 

Grange was dumbfounded, but with fine chivalry 
he endeavoured to excuse the Queen. "She had in 
eflPeft," he urged, "abandoned the said Earl, and it 
was no wonder that she gave him yet a few fair 
words. He did not doubt if she were discreetly han- 
dled and humbly admonished what inconveniences 
that man had brought upon her, she would by de- 
grees be brought not only to leave him but ere 
long to detest him." The Lords argued that until 
she had attained this state of mind she should be 
held in ward. Grange still urged gentle dealing with 
her, but admitted that while Bothwell was alive it 
were better she should be detained in custody. He 
then oflPered to pursue the Earl and bring him dead 
or alive to Edinburgh. And now came another let- 
ter from the Queen, this time addressed to Grange, 
complaining of the violation of his plighted word and 
of cruel and disrespectful usage. 
' Whereunto," says Melville, "he answered that he 
' had already reproached the Lords for the same ; 
' who showed him a letter sent by her unto the Earl 
' of Bothwell, promising among many other fair and 
' comfortable words, never to abandon or forget 
' him, which though he could scarcely believe it was 
' written by Her Majesty had stopped his mouth. 
' He marvelled that Her Majesty considered not, 
' that the said Earl could not be her lawful husband, 
' being so lately married with another, whom he 
' had deserted without any just ground, albeit he 
' were not so hated for the murder of the King her 
' husband. He entreated Her Majesty to put him 
' clean out of her mind as otherwise she could never 

"gain 






64 The tXiZ and ^t^i\^ of 

" gain the love and obedience of her subje6ls. This 
" letter contained many other loving and humble 
" admonitions which made her bitterly to weep." 

Their distrust of Grange, and the attitude of the 
mob whose rage against the Queen had given way 
to pity, led the Lords to adopt extreme measures. She 
was hurried from Edinburgh at midnight on the six- 
teenth, and the next day found her safely immured 
within the Castle of Lochleven. 

While Grange was most sensitive to any disre- 
spe6lful treatment of the Queen it is clear that he 
believed it wise to hold her for a time in some mea- 
sure of restraint. He even agreed that the King should 
be proclaimed — this as a provisional measure, to 
assist in the preservation of good order within the 
realm. Before Lindesay rode to Lochleven in July 
to gain the Queen's abdication, we find Grange with 
others urging Sir Robert Melville "to tell her the 
verity,'' and how "that anything she did in prison 
could not prejudge her being again at liberty." Sir 
Robert agreed to report this to the Queen as com- 
ing from those "he knew to be her true friends," 
and it is clear that her abdication was due to this 
advice rather than to that rough grasp of Linde- 
say 's iron gauntlet. The Queen requested that the 
Earl of Murray should assume the Regency, and 
that nobleman was making his way northward 
through England. On August eleventh he reached 
Edinburgh, and was besought by Grange "to bear 
himself gently and humbly unto the Queen. , . . 
Time might bring about such occasion as they 
should all wish her at liberty to rule over them." 
Perhaps the Lord Murray was not altogether pleased 
with the attitude of Grange. It is clear that he did 
not follow his advice. On the sixteenth he reached 
Lochleven and there arraigned his sister so fiercely 

that 



Sir mniiam IStrSalti^, Km. 65 

that she retired that night "in hope of nothing but 
God's mercy." She was especially cautioned to bear 
" no revenge to the Lords and others who had sought 
her reformation," meaning, of course, all those high- 
born gentlemen who had banded together for the 
slaying of the King and her marriage with the Earl 
of Both well. 

While Grange contended for the courteous treat- 
ment of the Queen he was yet more insistent that 
Bothwell should be seized or slain. This in his judge- 
ment was the first step toward the restoration of 
the Queen. There were many among the nobility 
who believed it wiser that "sleeping dogs should 
lie." There were others who believed that any re- 
sult arising from a mortal combat betwixt Bothwell 
and Grange would prove a benefit to many peers 
and barons who had a load of guilt upon their 
souls. On the eleventh of August a commission was 
granted to Grange and to his friend, the Laird of 
Tullibardine, to pursue by sea and land with fire 
and sword the Earl of Bothwell and his accom- 
plices. Bothwell had fled to Orkney, and on the 
nineteenth Grange set sail from Leith with four 
vessels manned by four hundred men. On the eve 
of departure he wrote as follows to the Earl of Bed- 
ford: 

" For my own part though I be no good seaman, I 
" promise me to your Lordship that if I once en- 
" counter with him either by sea or land, he shall 
" either carry me with him, or else I shall bring him 
" dead or quick to P^dinburgh. I take God to witness 
" the only occasion that moved me either to procure 
" or join myself to the Lords of this late enterprise 
" was to restore my native country again to liberty 
" and honour. For your Lordship knows well enough 
" how we were spoken of amongst all nations for that 

" treasonable 



66 The Life and '^Ztit\^ of 

" treasonable and horrible deed which was com- 
" mitted by the traitor Both well." 

Sailing from Leith in the Unicorn, Grange in a few 
days saw the stormy seas breaking on the coasts of 
Orkney and heard the deep-toned bells of Kirkwall 
sounding above the roar of unquiet waters. He bore 
away to Shetland, and in the Sound of Bressay he 
first sighted the armada of Both well. This glimpse 
of his enemy had set the blood dancing in his veins, 
and in spite of their protests he compelled his fright- 
ened seamen to crowd on all sail. Bothwell's pilots 
threaded safely these treacherous and shallow waters 
but the Unicorn was soon hard and fast upon a reef 
with the great seas beating her in pieces. Both well 
steered for Denmark, while Grange made his peril- 
ous way to another ship and without the loss of an 
hour followed in hot pursuit. Off the Norwegian 
coast Grange again drew up within cannon-shot. 
The mainmast of the Earl's ship was splintered by 
a ball, but at this crisis a great wind arose from 
the southwest and the warring galleys were driven 
far apart. Bothwell's craft drifted helplessly upon a 
sandy beach, but he managed to escape over her 
side and make his way to higher land. He passed on 
to a more cruel fate than that for which Grange had 
destined him. Late in September the ships of Grange 
came gliding again into Scottish waters, " frustrate of 
their prey,'' but bringing captive with them the shat- 
tered galley of Both well. Aboard this ill-fated craft 
were Bolton, Hay and other servants of the Earl, who 
were to suffer torture and death for the misdeeds of 
their master, and whose grim and wavering deposi- 
tions were to chill with dread the noblest blood in 
Scotland. 

The Regent Murray found a hard task upon his 
hands. The complications which had their root in the 

Darnley 



Sir milliam i^itfealUt^ Knt. 67 

Darnley conspiracy threw the nobility of Scotland 
into strange groupings. Religious lines that had so 
keenly divided the faftions seemed swept away. 
The minds of many of the great ones in the realm 
had ceased to refle6l upon the pains of Hell, but 
the scaffold and the block had become a very pre- 
sent terror. Perhaps a ta6lful course on the part of 
the Regent might have done much toward quieting 
the fears and jealousies of these tainted men. But the 
Regent was not ta6fful and carried matters with a 
strong hand. As the Lord Morton grew in favour 
with him, the Hamiltons and the great people of the 
West who hated the house of Douglas drew away 
from his interest. These gentlemen soon espoused 
warmly the cause of the imprisoned Queen. They 
were heartily ready to receive her when on that" Sun- 
day at even" in the spring of 1568 she escaped from 
the island keep. There were warm hearts and good 
swords in that band of horse with which Lord Seton 
met her as she stepped upon the strand of Lochleven. 
Who has not read with delight those pages in The 
Abbot wherein Sir Walter Scott describes that wild 
night gallop of the Queen's with Seton and his trusty 
men ; and of that morning view from her casement at 
Niddry where, " instead of the crystal sheet of Loch- 
leven," she saw a landscape of wood and moor, a 
glimpse of banners " floating in the wind as lightly as 
summer clouds." There were Hamiltons, Setons and 
Flemings under anns, "swords and spears in true 
hands, and glittering armour on loyal breasts." 

The Regent lay at Glasgow on the night that 
the Queen was riding for Niddry. He met the cri- 
sis calmly and with decision. The vassals of Len- 
nox and the burghers of Glasgow were promptly 
under arms, and Morton and Glencairn joined in 
good season. The Lord Home brought in his Border 

spears 



IB 



The life and j^eatl^ of 



spears, Balfour appeared with the arquebusiers from 
the Castle of Edinburgh. But the eyes of the Regent 
gladdened when, stained with dust and the marks 
of hard travel, the best soldier in Scotland came 
riding on to Glasgow Green at the head of his 
armed retainers. It is fair to suppose that Murray 
doubted Kirkaldy's coming, and we can well believe 
that Kirkaldy was ill at ease in the crisis. Doubt- 
less he still bore much love toward the Regent, 
though he had lost the full confidence that he had 
once reposed in him. But Grange did not relish the 
manner or the season of the Queen's reappearing. 
She should have taken counsel of wiser friends. 
Bothwell was still alive and there was no surety 
that she had conquered her ill-starred love. The 
triumph of the Hamiltons would plunge the nation 
into a long period of civil war. Grange must have 
reasoned in some such fashion as this before he rode 
westward to join the Regent. 

The Queen desired no bloodshed, but would go to 
Dumbarton Castle "and there endeavour little by 
little to win again the obedience of all her subje6ls." 
She tried to bring about " a communing for concord 
by the means of the Secretary Lethington and the 
Laird of Grange; and for her part she would send 
the Lord Herries and some other." But the Hamil- 
tons, and especially the Queen's General, the Duke 
of Argyle, confident in superior numbers, were anx- 
ious for battle. The Regent, moreover, had divined 
the Queen's plan to move upon Dumbarton, and 
Grange having surveyed the ground, his whole 
army took up a strong position on Langside Hill, 
which lay direftly in her line of march. "The Re- 
gent," says Melville, "committed to the Laird of 
Grange the special care as being an experimented 
Captain, to oversee every danger, and to ride to every 

wing 



Sir milliam Mt^alhi^, Km. 69 

wing to encourage and make help where greatest 
need was." A thorn tree a few rods from the ruins 
of Cathcart Castle marks the spot from which on 
July 18, 1568, the Queen of Scots is said to have 
looked down upon the battle. Her partisans rushed 
fiercely up the hill and locked spears with the Re- 
gent's pikemen. Some hagbutters, posted by Grange 
at the head of the lane on Langside Hill, staggered 
the vanguard of the Hamiltons;§ the archers of the 
Regent beat off an attack by Lord Herries' Horse. 
Then Grange brought up the reserves and struck 
the flank of the Queen's pikemen still struggling in 
the lane. A rout set in. Seton was captured, sword in 
hand. The Regent forbade pursuit. "Grange was 
never cruel," says Melville, "so that there were but 
few slain and taken." The Queen was away on her 
famous ride to Dundrennan Abbey, from whence she 
was to pass out of Scotland forever. 



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HOW Grange kcame Qdptain ^ //;c CAST LE OF 
EDINBURGH, /mi' he came to ^lis doubt the Carl 
Of l^Urrap, and ho-n: he xvas Persuaded to 'Declare that 
he stood for the £lUCCn Of ^COtS. 

IR James Balfour had fought 
stoutly at Langside, hut the Re- 
gent was anxious to have the 
Castle of Edinhurgh out of his 
hands. He had been a minion 
of Both\veirs,and his reputation 
for i:)ersonal honour even in 
these dishonourable times was 
not of the best. Mindful of the pledge that Grange 
had made, Balfour declared that he would yield his 
trust to him and to none other. To this suggestion the 
Regent readily agreed. He was fond of Grange, and 
though he had been worried by his attitude toward 
the Queen, he felt reassured now that the unhappy 
Princess was a fugitive beyond the Border. So on 
September 5, i,56'8, Grange entered the Castle as its 
Captain. The old familiar haunts in Fifeshire were to 
know him no more, and for the remaining short mea- 
sure of his life he was to dwell watchful and armed 
within the walls of Scotland's greatest stronghold. 
The Scottish Queen had been dethroned by her 
nobles. This was a bad precedent for Elizabeth to 
condone. But the Scottish Queen had not ratified the 
Treaty of Edinburgh, and was in tlie eyes of good 
Cathcjlics the riglitful Oueen of England. Tiiese facts 
made her a dangerous and unwelcome guest on l'>ng- 

lish 



74 



The life and i^eati^ of 



lish soil. While it was clearly for Elizabeth's interest 
that the insurgent nobles should be called to account, 
it was even more imperative that the fugitive Prin- 
cess should be forever discredited as a claimant for 
the English crown. 

Not long after the taking over of the Castle by 
Grange, we find Murray passing into England to 
justify the course of the insurgent Lords. Morton, 
Glencairn and Lennox were in his company, and 
they had among them those famous letters taken 
from the gilded Casket, and those strange deposi- 
tions which had been racked from Bothwell's ser- 
vants before they laid their heads upon the block. 
The Scottish peers were face to face with a desperate 
problem. It was no easy matter to incriminate the 
Queen in a guilty love for Bothwell and in the 
tragedy of Kirk of Field without revealing their 
own share in the marriage and the murder. Grange 
had urged that nothing should be asserted contrary 
to the Queen's honour, but while he remained in the 
Castle, Morton was in England plying the Regent's 
ear with contrary advice. 

The events that took place at York and Hampton 
Court during the closing months of the year 1568 
have been the subje6l of endless argument for suc- 
cessive generations. The Regent makes but a sorry 
figure in the pi61:ure. Chatelherault, Herries and 
Lesley defend the Queen, but there is a suggestion 
of fear and half-heartedness in their bearing. The 
mystery of Lethington grows more impenetrable. 
At one moment that crafty man seems anxious that 
the guilt of the Queen should be established ; at an- 
other we find him whispering to Norfolk "in the 
fields " that the evidence against her has been forged, 
that she is innocent of the crimes that are laid to 
her charge. She is not allowed to confront her ac- 
cusers 



Sir mniiam Mvfialhv, Knt. 75 

cusers nor to see those cruel papers on which the ac- 
cusations rest. At last, after weeks of unseemly pro- 
cedure, the English Queen declares that nothing 
has been shown refle6ling upon the honour of her 
" dear sister." But she finds that the rebellion against 
Mary's authority was not altogether blameworthy 
and the accusing Lords are suffered to depart for 
Scotland. Her dear sister would for the present re- 
main in England under some restraint; the Regent 
Murray would administer Scotland for James VI. 

It was a discordant band of gentlemen that re- 
crossed the Border from England in the early days 
of 1 s6q. From Stirling, Murray issued a proclama- 
tion in the King's name asserting the guilt of the 
Queen in Darnley's murder. Huntley* was in re- 
bellion in the North, while the Hamiltons were rest- 
less and insubordinate. In April the Regent resorted 
to extreme measures. At a convention of nobles held 
in Edinburgh on the tenth of the month he seized 
upon the Duke of Chatelherault and Lord Herries 
and gave them over to the keeping of Grange. 
But this high-handed aft was not relished by the 
new Captain of the Castle. He protested vigorously, 
and Mr. John Wood was sent to reason with him 
on the Regent's behalf. " I marvel at you," declared 
the worthy emissary, "that you will be offended at 
this; for how shall we who are my Lord's defend- 
ers, get rewards but by the wrack of such men.?" 
To which Grange responded, "Is that your Holi- 
ness? I see nothing among you but Envy, Greedi- 
ness and Ambition, whereby you will wrack a good 
Regent and ruin the country!" 

Here was a declaration that struck cold to the 
Regent's heart. The gulf betwixt him and his old 
friend was widening fast. Another event was at hand 
to deepen the estrangement. Early in September 

Lethington 



76 The tiit and J^tati^ of 

Lethington was formally accused in the Privy Coun- 
cil at Stirling of complicity in Darnley's murder. 
The charge was brought by a retainer of the Earl 
of Lennox, but it was believed at the time that the 
Regent's distrust of the Secretary was at the root of 
the accusation. Lethington was arrested, as was Sir 
James Balfour, in whose house by the Kirk of Field 
the tragedy had been ena6led. Balfour promptly ap- 
pealed to Grange reminding him of his pledge of pro- 
te6lion given in the days before Carberry Hill. To 
the heated protests of Grange, the Regent pleaded 
his inability to preserve these gentlemen from prison 
and asserted it was against his will that they were ac- 
cused of the King's murder. He declared that Grange 
should know " his honest part" at their next meeting 
and begged that he would suspend his judgement. 
Grange in his rage urged that a like charge of mur- 
der should be brought against the Earl of Morton 
and Mr. Archibald Douglas, a suggestion that raised 
up against him in the person of the said Earl a fierce 
and implacable enemy. Murray now offered as a 
pledge of his confidence in Grange to place Lething- 
ton in the Castle, to be warded by him. He journeyed 
to Edinburgh with the Secretary, and sent for the 
Captain to come down into the town to confer with 
him. But Grange had been informed that this was 
a ruse to draw him without the Castle, whither he 
would not be allowed to return. He also learned that 
the Earl of Morton had hired assassins to slay him 
as he passed out of the Regent's lodgings. So the 
Captain concluded to remain within his walls, but in 
the dead of night his men-at-arms came down into 
the streets, removed the Secretary from his prison 
and conveyed him to the Castle. This was a terrible 
blow to Murray. Lethington in Kirkaldy's keeping 
was a dangerous man, possessing as he did full 

knowledge 



Sir mauam i^irfealDt, Knt. 



11 



knowledge of all those awful secrets that had so wor- 
ried the Lords in recent years. Concealing his anger 
the Regent passed up to the Castle on the day fol- 
lowing the event. "He durst trust Grange, though 
Grange would no longer trust him" — such is Mel- 
ville's significant comment. The Regent used many 
fair words, we are told, but Grange was suspicious 
and took all such speech "in evil part." He had a 
logical defence to urge for his seizure of Lethington. 
The Regent had expressed himself as opposed to his 
arrest and had declared his inability to prevent it. 
The Captain explained that he had done the Regent 
a friendly service in accomplishing that good deed 
which for the moment he was unable to bring to pass 
himself. 

It appears that at this time Grange would willingly 
have given up the Castle if the security of Lething- 
ton and Balfour could have been assured. Sir James 
Melville endeavoured to arrange for the transfer of 
command on the terms suggested by Grange, but the 
Regent declined to consider the proposal, being still 
anxious to regain the loyalty of his old friend. He 
desired that Grange should still hold the Castle for 
the King. " He had too many obligations to him, and 
too great proofs of his fidelity to mistrust him ; he 
was never minded to take the Castle from him, and 
if it were out of his hands, he would give him the 
keeping thereof before any other." He went up 
again to the Castle and there found the Captain and 
Lethington together. "He conferred friendly with 
them of all his affairs with a merry countenance and 
casting in many merry purposes minding them of 
many straits and dangers they had formerly been 
together engaged in." It is a pathetic episode, this 
effort of the Regent to win again the confidence of 
Grange. Perhaps Murray was dissembling in these 

trying 



78 The Hit and l^eatl^ of 

trying days. Sir James Melville believed him to be 
insincere, and there is no doubt that Lethington used 
all his powers to convince Grange that this was the 
case. 

So the Regent made his way down into the town 
again, unhappy and chagrined. The King's standard 
floated over David's Tower, but already the Queen's 
fa6lion had taken heart at the attitude of the Cap- 
tain. The rising for the Queen of Scots in the North 
of England occurred in December of this year. The 
rebels were driven over the Border where Murray 
met them with a strong hand. The Duke of North- 
umberland was captured and lodged in the Keep of 
Lochleven. In this rough Border campaign the Re- 
gent had missed Grange sadly. For the first time 
he had confronted serious military problems unas- 
sisted by the Fifeshire soldier. Their days of com- 
radeship were over and they were never again to 
grasp hands or to look in each other's eyes. On Jan- 
uary 20, 1570, as Murray rode into Linlithgow on 
his way to Edinburgh, Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh 
fired his stealthy and fatal shot. There was a spon- 
taneous outburst of grief in the capital when it was 
known that the Regent lay dead. He was indeed 
"the Good Regent" to the preachers and to their 
loyal followers in the towns. "My Lord Regent's 
corpse," says the Diurnal of Occurrents ,'' was brought 
in a boat by sea from Stirling to Leith where it was 
kept in John Wairdlaw his house, and thereafter car- 
ried to the Palace of Holyrood." The mournful pro- 
cession passed between lines of sobbing people. In 
the West there was unseemly rejoicing among the 
Hamiltons, and there were few indeed of the nobles 
who would have called the dead statesman back. But 
Grange mourned honestly for his old friend, and on 
the day of the funeral we learn from the Diurnal 

of 



Sir mniiam i^itfealDt, Knt. 



79 



of Occurrents , that the procession which bore the re- 
mains from Holyrood to the College Kirk of St. 
Giles was headed by William Kirkaldy of Grange, 
who "rade from the said palace in dule weird," 
bearing the Lyon standard of Scotland. Behind him 
came the Master of the Regent's household with the 
standard of Murray, and then followed Athol, Mar, 
Glencairn, Ruth v en, Graham, Lindesay and a great 
concourse of barons and lesser people. Within the 
crowded cathedral the English Ambassador reported 
"as great a sorrow as he ever saw." When the re- 
mains had been placed before the pulpit, the harsh 
voice of John Knox rang through the dim aisles of 
the old church as he preached from the words, 
" Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord." " Three 
thousand persons," says Calderwood, "were moved 
to shed tears for the loss of such a good and godly 
Governor." 

The chara6ler of the Earl of Murray has been as 
much debated as that of his royal sister. His private 
life was above reproach. He ruled Scotland with a 
strong hand, and yet his government on the whole 
was mild and just. He was conscientious in the dis- 
charge of his duty toward the young King. His zeal 
for religion had increased with succeeding years, 
and touching this side of his life the eulogy of John 
Knox was well deserved. He was a brave man, but 
we have seen him cringing before the English Queen 
after the Run-about Raid. He was not cruel, but he 
makes a harsh figure in the conferences at Loch- 
leven. He was more honest than many of his col- 
leagues, but his bearing at York and Hampton 
Court was not creditable to an honest man. Lething- 
ton had declared when the idea of Darnley's re- 
moval was first suggested that Murray "would 
look through liis fingers and behold their doings, 

saying 



8o The Life and ^t^t\^ of 

saying nothing to the same." It is in some such pos- 
ture as this that history leaves the Good Regent. We 
can see him through the dimness of three centuries 
looking askance upon more than one doubtful deed, 
not assenting, not protesting, but " saying nothing 
to the same." 

It is a hard matter to acquit the English Queen of 
deliberately fomenting civil strife in Scotland during 
the year 1570. Indeed, before the close of that year 
we find Thomas Randolph exulting over the fires 
of dissension and hate which he had kindled beyond 
the Tweed. There was no lack of fuel for such a 
conflagration. Argyle and the Hamiltons had not 
been represented at the Regent's funeral, but they 
repaired to Linlithgow and from there to Edinburgh 
in the month of March. Linlithgow was the head- 
quarters of the Queen's Lords, who had become too 
powerful a fa6lion to be lightly reckoned with. On 
April eighteenth there was, according to Bannatyne,a 
*' conference appointed betwixt the Linlithgow Lords 
and such as stood by the King's authority, at Dal- 
keith, the end whereof is feared to be that all shall 
go to the devil together." The preachers were evi- 
dently losing faith even in the King's Lords. John 
Knox upbraided them fiercely for their greed and 
worldliness and predi6led dire troubles that should 
come to them. To make matters worse at this crisis, 
the Earl of Sussex invaded the Scottish Border to 
punish all such as had extended comfort and asylum 
to the English rebels of the year before. Sussex him- 
self had no relish for such duty. He had informed 
Melville at Berwick "that if he did any enterprise at 
that time against any Scotsman it would be against his 
heart, and that of all Scotsmen he liked best those 
who were in the Castle of Edinburgh and their de- 
penders." He had urged upon Cecil the dangers that 

would 



Sir mUlimvi Mtiialti^, Km. si 

would arise from the invasion unless it were made a 
prelude to a broader scheme for the pacification of 
all Scotland. He besought the Queen to declare her- 
self openly for one party or the other. "These mat- 
ters have too long slept." He was ready to go either 
way according to the Queen's order, but some decla- 
ration was necessary to prevent anarchy in Scotland. 
But the English Queen spoke not. The rival faftions 
thronged in Edinburgh, the Queen's Lords haunt- 
ing Maitland's lodgings, while the King's people fre- 
quented the house of the Earl of Morton. In vain 
Maitland warned Cecil that the measures of his Sov- 
ereign would drive all Scotsmen into the arms of 
France. Sussex was ravaging the Merse in April and 
laying it waste after the fashion of the " auld enemy." 
Buccleuch's stronghold of Branxholm was thrown 
down, as was the castle of Lord Home. Then Drury, 
the Marshal of Berwick, passed swiftly northward 
with a force of sixteen hundred men, and after a short 
halt at Edinburgh made his way into the West to 
lay waste the Hamiltons' country. There had been 
no warning given of this raid. It was Elizabeth's 
method of declaring that she did not favour the pre- 
tensions of the Queen's fa6lion in Scotland. Drury 
did his work thoroughly. The castle at Glasgow, 
from which Darnley had been taken on his last jour- 
ney to Balfour's house by Kirk of Field, was sacked 
and burned. The Palace of Hamilton was plundered 
and then put to the torch, while the lands of Flem- 
ing and Livingston were overrun. It was largely 
through the efforts of Lethington that France was 
induced to interfere, and it was the representations 
of the French Ambassador at London that brought 
about the recall of the English troops. 

" Before the armies returned to Edinburgh, the bird 
in the cage " — so Bannatyne was pleased to style the 

Secretary 



82 The Life and l^eatlft of 

Secretary — "took his flight from the Castel of Edin- 
burgh and lighted in the Blair of Athole where he 
remained pra61:ising his auld craft till the month of 
August. Confound him and his malicious mind ! "Leth- 
ington was a free man in the sense that he had under- 
gone his purging from the charge of complicity in the 
King's murder. Availing himself of the gathering of 
the nobles in Edinburgh during the days after the 
Regent's funeral, he had put himself on trial for the 
crime with which he was charged. For the moment 
his friends seemed numerous and he was believed to 
have the Castle at his back. We are told that he made 
"a very perfe6l oration," and was washed as white 
as Bothwell had been before him. But he feared the 
presence of Drury in the West would encourage 
Morton, Lennox and the rest of his enemies to at- 
tempt some mischief against him. So we find him in 
July slipping away to Blair in Athole where he had 
found a refuge in more than one stormy crisis. -f- 

On July 17, 1570, the King's Lords at Stirling de- 
clared for the Earl of Lennox as Murray's succes- 
sor. He was favoured by the Earl of Morton, who, 
as the most powerful peer in Scotland, found it 
remunerative to stand as the good friend and sup- 
porter of the policies of the English Queen. It is not 
hard to understand the sordid courses followed by 
this forceful peer who had Thomas Randolph ever 
at his elbow. But the appointment of Lennox as 
Regent meant nothing else than civil war. He was 
not a Scottish subje6l. As the father of Darnley he 
held a blood feud against Argyle and the Hamil- 
tons, and it was Crawford, a retainer of his, who 
had charged Maitland at Stirling with being art and 
part in the King's murder. He had been with Drury 
during his ravages in the West, and in the eyes of 
the Lords who had suffered he was held as hateful 

as 



Sir mniiam MxMltiVi Km. 83 

as though it had been his hand that applied the 
torch which set Hamilton Palace aflame. Thomas 
Randolph might well congratulate himself upon 
what the spring-time had brought to pass in Scot- 
land. 

Throughout these trying days the standard of 
James VI had waved from the walls of the Castle 
of Edinburgh. Before Murray's death the Captain 
had agreed with the Provost of the town to main- 
tain the authority of the youthful Prince within their 
jurisdiftion. We have seen how the later course of 
the Captain had given comfort to the adherents of 
the Queen until, despite the banner it displayed, the 
Castle had become an enigma to the rival fa6tions. 
Toward Grange, in his altered attitude, the wrath 
of the preachers was tempered by sorrow, but for 
Lethington they had only loathing and hate. "That 
Great God, the Secretary," snarls Bannatyne in 
wrathful derision. Maitland was credited with a 
knowledge of the Black Art, and the backsliding of 
the Captain was laid to the power of his magic. A 
few weeks after the Regent's death Grange had set 
free Herries, Balfour, Seton and the Duke whom 
he had been warding in the Castle. Then late in 
April we find the armed Hamiltons received within 
the town by the Captain's orders.]; A few days later 
Lord Home, fleeing from the wrath of Sussex, found 
a refuge within the Castle walls. At the door of 
"that Great God, the Secretary," was laid the re- 
sponsibility for all these comforts extended to the 
enemies of the late Regent. The worthy Bannatyne, 
like his master, Knox, appears to have hoped against 
hope in the Captain's case. "Let men now judge 
whether the Captain of the Castle be changed or 
not." Such was his lament when the Hamiltons came 
to town. "The former honestie of the man stayed 

the 



84 The Life and ^t^i\^ of 

the hearts of all the faithful in their former good 
opinion of him, unto such time as his rebellion so 
brusted forth as none could excuse it." By May 
first it was common talk that Grange had aban- 
doned the King's cause, and "was clean revolted 
without any further hope." It was said that the 
Queen of Scots had bribed him with the Priory of 
St. Andrews, and Randolph availed himself of the 
rumour to send this bantering note to the friend of 
his college days: "Brother William, it was indeed 
most wonderful unto me when I heard that you had 
become a prior. That vocation agreeth not with any- 
thing that ever I knew in you saving for your re- 
ligious life under the cardinal's hat when we were 
both students in Paris." But the faithful saw no 
room for mirth in the defe6lion of their bravest cap- 
tain. They were ready at last to believe the worst of 
him, and disregarding his scornful denial of the cur- 
rent rumour, Bannatyne breaks forth passionately in 
this fashion: "Alace, Sir William Kirkaldy some-' 
tyme stout and true Laird of Grange. Miserable is 
thy fall who now draws in yoke with known and 
manifest traitors, that sometyme had place among 
honest hearts, yea, amongst the saints of God, who 
for the pleasure of that father of traitors the Secre- 
tary, left, yea betrayed, the Regent who promoted 
thee, and now is bruted to sell the castle for two 
thousand crowns and for the priory of St. Andrews 
to be given thee and thine in fee. But Judas joyed 
not long the price of innocent blood!" 

Perhaps the preachers were not far wrong in lay- 
ing at the door of Lethington a large measure of 
responsibility for what they regarded as the back- 
sliding of Grange. But with his understanding of the 
Captain's nature, his keen knowledge of all the con- 
spiracies of the Queen's reign, and his diplomatic 

handling 



Sir militant i^trfialDt, Knt. 8s 

handling of the truth, the Secretary needed no magic 
beyond that of his engaging personality to aid him in 
his conquest. Lethington had been quick to divine the 
state of the Captain's mind, disturbed as it was by the 
treachery of Carberry Hill and the harshness em- 
ployed by the Earl of Murray toward the Queen. In 
the past Lethington and Grange had been in accord 
on more than one important matter, and now the Sec- 
retary was earnest in his efforts to gain the confi- 
dence of his blunt and outspoken friend. It would be 
of the keenest interest to know what passed between 
the Captain and his subtle guest as in the early days 
of their companionship in the Castle they walked the 
sunny terraces, or as through long evenings they sat 
in close conference within the Great Hall, where the 
flickering glow from the chimney-place cast strange 
lights and shadows upon the ancient walls. What 
was it the Secretary had to say of the handling of the 
Casket Letters, of the manner of the King's dying, 
and of Both well's meeting with the Queen on the 
Linlithgow road.'' It is likely that Lethington assured 
Grange, as he had assured Norfolk, that he knew 
the truth of Darnley's taking off, that Morton, as 
well as Both well, was a chief conspirator, that the 
Queen was no murderess, and that the Casket Let- 
ters were filthy forgeries. He may have unfolded 
the vision of a united Britain under a Scottish Prin- 
cess, and urged that the Queen's honour should be 
maintained, so that in case Elizabeth died, the Eng- 
lish as well as the Scottish crown might be placed 
upon a Stuart brow. Lethington would hardly have 
laid much stress upon religious considerations save 
as they affe6led the political situation. But the zeal 
of Grange for the Kirk had grown cool, and he saw 
among his old comrades of the Congregation no- 
thing but "Envy, Greed and Ambition," as he had 

declared 



86 The life and j^eati^ of 

declared to Master Wood. 

Doubtless the Earl of Murray, as well as Morton, 
fared ill in these conferences, but the Captain ap- 
pears to have carried from them the convi(51:ion that 
the Secretary Maitland of Lethington was a man of 
honour and patriotism, and that the Queen of Scots, 
despite her ill-starred love for Bothwell, was yet a 
noble Princess worthy the homage of all English 
as well as of all Scottish hearts. The position in 
which Grange stood was a most trying one and a 
grave responsibility rested upon his shoulders. It 
was clear that Scotland needed repose and it was 
also plain that the King's party was far the stronger 
in the land, and that with the aid of the Castle they 
must surely and swiftly prevail. The readier way 
to pacify the realm would seem to lie in his frank 
espousal of the King's cause. But the arguments of 
Lethington found reinforcement in the stormy events 
that had racked the Border. Not only had Home, flee- 
ing from the vengeance of Sussex, passed within the 
prote6lion of the Castle, but thither came young Fer- 
niherst, who was husband to the Captain's daugh- 
ter, and Buccleuch of Branxholm, a good friend to 
Grange, loving him, we are told, "better than any 
of his own kin." These men bore a fearful hatred 
to Sussex and Lennox and all that they represented. 
So while the Captain yearned for peace, the griev- 
ances of the Border Chiefs, his own mistrust of 
Morton, his old pledge to Balfour, his sympathy for 
the Queen, all conspired with the arguments of the 
Secretary to draw him away from what at the mo- 
ment seemed the dominant fa6lion in the land. 

If it be true, as Melville asserts, that Morton made 
his way stealthily into the Castle by night and solic- 
ited the aid of Grange in a plot which had for its 
aim the substitution of the crafty Douglas for the Earl 

of 



Sir mtllfam i^irfealDt, Km. 87 

of Lennox as Regent of Scotland, the King's cause 
was certainly no gainer thereby. Grange hotly re- 
fused to lend a hand in such a matter. Vacillating 
and bewildered among the complications that beset 
him, Grange had recourse to Randolph, the English 
Ambassador. "There had been great friendship be- 
tween them in France," and through Melville the 
Captain begged that the Ambassador would "be 
plain with him" as to the purposes the Queen of 
England had in hand. To Melville's solicitations 
Randolph replied in this fashion: "Tell your friend 
from Mr. Randolph, but not from the English Am- 
bassador, that there is no lawful authority in Scot- 
land but the Queen's; she will prevail at length and 
therefore her course is the surest and best for him." 
It is not clear what impression this made upon the 
Captain's mind, but a little later the Ambassador con- 
veyed a suggestion to him that destroyed forever 
what was left of the friendship that had been so 
strong in France. Randolph desired to know, if in 
case the two Queens should agree upon an English- 
man for the Captain of the Castle, Grange " would 
condescend also for great commodity to himself to 
deliver the said Castle unto that person that should 
be appointed." This Grange "refused utterly in a 
great anger." 

There was much correspondence with England 
passing in and out of the Castle during the years 
from 1571 toi573,andwhile the signature of Grange 
appears with that of Lethington on important mis- 
sives, it is clear that those astute papers were solely 
the produ6l of the Secretary's subtle mind. Leth- 
ington had reentered the Castle in the spring of 1 5 7 1 , 
sorely stricken by disease, but with his brain as clear 
and alert as of yore.§ Once again he was recog- 
nized as the Secretary of Mary of Scotland, and 

henceforth 



The L(fe a7id J^eatl^ of 



henceforth he was to be steadily loyal to her cause. 
While he fashioned diplomatic sentences and plied 
all his arts in behalf of his imprisoned mistress, we 
find Grange sensitive and testy under criticism and 
breaking forth into menaces and threatenings in a 
manner strange for him. His mind was not at peace. 
He winced under the lashings of his old friends, the 
preachers, and when he could trace back rude slan- 
ders to men of the sword he was quick to give the 
lie and to offer to maintain whatever he said by single 
combat. Had he been a free man his hands would 
have been full proving the slanders of his enemies 
upon their bodies, but when it came to a6lion he was 
held in check by his comrades in the Castle. They 
all insisted that his life, of the first importance to the 
State, should not be hazarded in private quarrels. 
Moreover, they declared "that their only comfort 
under God consisted in the preservation of his per- 
son." The Captain's altercation with Alexander 
Stuart of Garlics may be found set forth at length 
in Bannatyne, and it forms an almost unworthy note 
in the record of the Knight of Grange. It is a sorry 
matter that his associates who prevented the combat 
could not likewise have checked the correspond- 
ence. 

Another regrettable incident in which Grange was 
involved occurred at Leith late in 1570. It appears 
that in the fall of that year the life of John Kirkaldy, 
a kinsman of the Captain, had been attempted at 
Dumfermline by George Durie, Henry Seton and 
others. On a day not long after, Seton being then in 
Leith, the Captain sent six of his followers to trun- 
cheon him, with stri6l orders not to draw their swords. 
The rapier of Seton proved troublesome and danger- 
ous however, and before the scuffle was over he had 
been mortally wounded by the steel of his adversa- 
ries. 



Sir milliam ItlttfealDt, Km. 89 

ries. The assassins escaped to the Castle with the 
exception of one James Fleming, who was seized and 
locked up within the Edinburgh Tolbooth. Now this 
offender was a favourite henchman of the Captain's, 
who vainly endeavoured to secure his release. So in 
the darkness of a December night, we find the men- 
at-arms from the Castle battering in the doors of the 
jail and removing Fleming therefrom. The affair was 
accomplished in the midst of terror produced by the 
booming of the Captain's artillery. It would hardly 
have caused comment in these stormy times had it 
not formed the basis for a quarrel between Knox and 
the Captain which was destined never to be recon- 
ciled. The preacher from his pulpit stormed in right- 
eous indignation, proclaiming that in his days he had 
never seen "so slanderous, so malapert, so fearful 
and tyrannous a fa6l. ... If the committer had been 
a man without God, a throat cutter, and such as had 
never known the works of God it had not moved 
him, but to see a star fall from heaven and a man of 
knowledge commit so manifest treason, what Godly 
heart cannot but lament, tremble and fear." It was 
reported to the Captain that he had been called "a 
throat cutter," and he retorted hotly upon Knox, car- 
rying his complaint against the preacher before the 
Kirk session. The arguments of the contestants are 
set forth at length by the worthy Bannatyne, and 
on the whole the preacher makes the more dignified 
figure in the dispute. It was during this trouble, and 
after nearly a year's absence from service, that we 
find Grange on a certain Sunday clanking up the 
aisle of St. Giles, followed by a guard of soldiers in 
full armour, to do honour, as he said, to the presence 
of Margaret, the Dowager Countess of Murray. 
Among the soldiers there were some who had borne 
a part in Fleming's rescue. The ire of Knox was 

roused 



90 The Hit and ^mt\^ of 

roused at such a display of force within the House 
of God, and from the pulpit "he forewarned proud 
contemners that God's mercy appertained not to 
such as with knowledge proudly transgressed, and 
after more proudly mentioned the same." Grange 
took affront at this and other pointed sayings, and 
soon we find it bruited abroad in the town, that " the 
Laird of Grange had become sworn enemy to John 
Knox and would slay him." Glencairn headed a peti- 
tion praying the Captain for a statement as to the 
truth of this charge, while the faithful within the 
town formed a guard for the prote6lion of the 
preacher against his enemies. This guard was for- 
bidden by Grange, who took upon himself the re- 
sponsibility of safeguarding the person of his old-time 
friend and very present enemy. 

In April, 1571, the Castle of Dumbarton, which 
had been stoutly held for the Queen by Lord Flem- 
ing, was betrayed to the King's fa6lion. It was a 
treacherous deed and the Queen's Lords were in de- 
spair. The Archbishop Hamilton, he whose light had 
burned so steadily on the night of the King's mur- 
der, was taken prisoner at Dumbarton and without 
any form of trial was hanged at Stirling by the Re- 
gent's orders. Here was new matter for hatred be- 
twixt the Hamiltons and the followers of Lennox. 
The Regent issued a proclamation in May branding 
Grange as a traitor, and a few days later appeared 
the Captain's defence and defiance nailed to the 
Market Cross of Edinburgh. He was not dismayed by 
the loss of Dumbarton. In the face of odds he grew 
strong. The Castle of Edinburgh was no longer an 
enigma, for the King's flag had come down from 
David's Tower and in its place a broad standard 
streamed out in the wind, proclaiming to all Scotland 
that Grange stood for the Queen. 

The 



Sir mUlimX MxUl^Vi Knt. 



9' 



The King's Lords moved in force to Leith, and oc- 
cupying the Canongate of Edinburgh proceeded to 
hold a Parliament, wherein was decreed the forfeit- 
ure of Grange and the other leaders of the Castle 
party. The Regent's forces were held at the Nether- 
bow Port, for the Castle garrison had barricaded 
the streets, while cannon were lifted to the steeple- 
head of St. Giles and from thence raked the length 
of the Canongate almost to Holyrood House. At this 
time we find the Regent's fa6fion described by the 
burghers as the Lords of the Canongate, while the 
others were known as Castilians. Grange on his part 
opened a Parliament at the Tolbooth in the Queen's 
name, where the Duke, Huntley, Home and Max- 
well seem to have been the commanding figures. The 
Castle guns wrought havoc in many quarters, and 
there was fighting without the town where hostile de- 
tachments frequently met. The exploits and dismal 
fate of Captain Cullayne, the death of Captain Mel- 
ville, and the stout address of Grange to his bereaved 
command are given in Bannatyne and other chroni- 
cles of the day. We read of the Regent placing ord- 
nance on the Calton Hill with which to "ding" the 
town; of Huntley bringing down Mons Meg from 
the Castle to Black Friars Yard from whence she 
pounded John Lawson's house with stone ball; of 
the Captain's loopholing of the vaults of St. Giles for 
musketry ; and of the Regent's cavaliers pricking day 
by day over Halkerston Croft menacing the Castle in 
wild bravado and drawing its ready fire. The peace- 
ful burghers were driven to distra6lion in the midst 
of such uproar and disorder. In May, John Knox was 
persuaded to leave his spiritual charge and pass over 
to St. Andrews — a caliver ball had entered the win- 
dow of his house, and the faitliful trembled for his 
safety. Grange was well content that he should go, 

for 



92 The Mit and J^Catl^ of 

for there was bad blood between the Hamiltons and 
the preacher. The Duke declared he could not an- 
swer for his followers in this matter. "There were 
many rascals among them that loved him not, and 
they might do him harm without his knowledge," 
so John Knox departed and soon after the Regent 
retired also, drawing off his forces toward Stirling to 
the great relief of the battered capital. 

These events constituted the beginning of what was 
to be known as the Douglas Wars, from the un- 
happy prominence therein of James Douglas, Earl 
of Morton. More savage deeds for more selfish 
ends are rarely recorded in history. Melville is frank 
in saying that private enmities rather than devo- 
tion to any public cause fired the warring parties. 
"Neither King nor Queen was in any of their minds 
but they were only possessed by their own ambi- 
tion, greediness and vengeance." The taint of greed 
has not stained the reputation of Grange, but there 
is little in his career during his governorship of the 
Castle that indicates deep personal devotion to the 
Queen. He laboured with the preachers to pray for 
her cause in public, but from such records as have 
come down to us it would seem that he had far 
more to say about his own wrongs and those of his 
friends — Balfour whom he prote61:ed and Maitland 
whom he had rescued — than about the virtues and 
just claims of the Oueen of Scots. 

There was one occasion during the sitting of the 
Canongate Parliament when Grange may be said 
to have declared his political faith. We have few 
glimpses of him in these troubled days, or of what 
went on within the Castle walls, but at this time we 
are permitted, in the pages of Bannatyne, to pass 
within the fortress in company with a deputation of 
the preachers. They sought conference with the Cas- 

tilians 



Sir millimx lirfealD^^ Knt. 



93 



tilians in the hope " to pacify the troubles of the coun- 
try. 

"At our entry in the Castle," so runs the quaint 
narrative in Bannatyne, " we past to the Great Hall 
on the south side, where soon after Sir James Bal- 
four came to us, and thereafter my Lord Duke, and 
last the Captain of the Castle, who desired My Lord 
Duke and us also to enter within the Chamber 
within the said Hall, where the Lord Secretaire was 
sitting before his bed in a chair. My Lord Duke sat 
down, so the Captain desired us all instantly to sit 
down which we did." 

After some diplomatic fence in which his keenness 
appears even through the medium of the preacher's 
narrative, Lethington declares that he will explain 
the proceedings of his fa6lion from the beginning. 
There were two reasons, he said, that led the no- 
bility to appear in arms at Carberry Hill: the first 
was to punish Both well for the King's murder, the 
other to dissolve the marriage between him and the 
Queen. It was no part of their plan to dethrone 
the Queen, and had she consented to separate her- 
self from Bothwell they would have continued in her 
obedience. They had hoped that all Scotsmen would 
assist them, but after Carberry their numbers fell 
away until they were opposed by the greater part 
of the realm. In this crisis the cloak of some new 
authority was required to preserve order, and so the 
King was proclaimed. But the setting up of the King's 
authority was but a "fetche or shift" to save them 
from grave inconveniences, and it was never meant 
that it should stand or continue. "And for my own 
part," pleads Lethington, "plainly I confess I did 
very evil and ungodly in the setting up of the King's 
authority; for he can never justly be King so long 
as his mother lives." Then turning to his colleagues, 

the 



tftfitt 



94 The life and ^^Catlft of 

the Secretary declared that he was assured that they 
were in agreement with him upon this point. " At this 
speaking," says Bannatyne, *' My Lord Duke, Sir 
James Balfour, and the Captain confessed with mu- 
tual consent, nodding with their heads, and without 
speaking, the same to be the truth." 

Here we have Kirkaldy's confession of faith. A sign 
from the Duke or from Balfour has no significance, 
for one was old and fickle and the other always 
false ; but from the silent gesture of Grange we may 
understand that not only would he fight for the 
Queen, but that he believed himself at fault when he 
acknowledged her son. There was more unprofita- 
ble conversation in which Balfour bore a part, until 
Lethington, irritated by the arrogant dogmatism of 
his guests, is fain to enquire if they be of " the Al- 
mighty's secret council." The meeting breaks up. 
Mr. Andrew Hay passes to the Captain and speaks 
with him apart, and then "Mr. John,"|| who had 
a6f ed as spokesman of the party, likewise exchanges 
a few words with Grange ere he takes his leave. 
No word passes from Grange during this long in- 
terview in which Maitland bears so keen a part. It 
is a subie6l for a painter, that strange group gath- 
ered within the dim chamber whose windows looked 
southward across the Lothian plain to the slopes of 
the Pentlands flooded in sunlight: the preachers, 
soberly gowned, with thin eager faces; the crippled 
Secretary, crouching in his chair and stroking the 
little dog that lies upon his lap; My Lord Duke, 
solemn and drowsy from age; Balfour restless and 
quick at retort, and the Captain sitting apart, intent 
and silent. 

In September, 1571, the King's Parliament sate at 
Stirling. Cassilis, Boyd and Eglinton had abandoned 
the Queen, and Argyle seemed wavering. Morton, 

who 



Sir milliam Mtkathv, Km. 95 

who had threatened to change sides, was brought 
to order by a bribe from England and by other con- 
siderations, including a grant of the estates and 
revenues forfeited by the Laird of Grange. The 
timid hearts within the Castle were cheered by the 
Captain's courage. In August he planned for a bold 
stroke that was to bring his enemies to tenns. He 
would make a sudden descent upon Stirling, seize 
upon the persons of the Regent's leaders, and bring- 
ing them to Edinburgh, compel an agreement in 
which the just rights of all should be safeguarded 
and peace established. It was a soldier's scheme, 
and the Lords in the Castle thought it " exceedingly 
good." But trouble came when Grange declared his 
intention to ride with his soldiers and command in 
person. This his friends "would in no ways grant," 
again urging the importance of his life to the State. 
Grange argued that " he was experimented with dif- 
ficult enterprises," and feared that if he were not 
present, his men " would not follow rightly or care- 
fully his dire6lion." But the consternation of his col- 
leagues was so great that he was compelled to aft 
against his judgement. So he called Ferniherst, " his 
good son," and Buccleuch, " a man of rare qualities, 
wise, true, stout and modest," and obtained their 
" assurances that they would follow his instructions 
faithfully and restriftedly." When Grange finally 
decided to remain within the Castle a great danger 
for the King's cause had passed. The force of six 
hundred men picked by the Captain was made up 
largely of the Borderers of Home and Buccleuch, 
with a sprinkling of Hamiltons and Gordons. Hunt- 
ley also rode with the party, and Grange laboured 
with each commander, explaining the details of his 
duty with care and precision. 
On Sunday, September second, when Grange was 

arranging 



^M 



96 The life and l^catl^ of 

arranging for his raid, Mr. John Rowe from his pul- 
pit at Stirling was arraigning the Lords for their 
covetousness, and prophesying "God's hasty ven- 
geance to fall upon them." At daybreak on the 
Tuesday following, when the preacher leaped from 
his bed, alarmed by the shouting, the shots, and 
the ringing of steel, he may have given a terrified 
thought to his words and dreaded that the wrath 
of God had come indeed. No good watch had been 
kept within the town, the Border riders were raging 
through the streets and lurid flames were curling 
from Morton's lodgings before the late stars had 
ceased to twinkle in the sky. Glencairn and others 
were promptly seized, the Regent fell into the hands 
of the Laird of Wormistoun, but Morton, despite the 
terror of the flames, defended his house to the last 
extremity before yielding to Buccleuch. His stout re- 
sistance had not been in vain. What Grange dreaded 
had come to pass and the Borderers were dispersing 
in search of plunder. The garrison of Stirling Castle 
was aroused and came down upon the raiders as they 
were disordered in the flush of vi6lory. Morton, 
Glencairn and the others were rescued, but the Re- 
gent fell, mortally wounded by a Hamilton bullet. 
The brave Wormistoun, who had been charged by 
Grange with the prote6lion of the Regent, died in his 
defence. What for the moment had seemed a bril- 
liant success became because of lax leadership a dis- 
mal failure. Naught was accomplished save the em- 
bitterment of old feuds and the killing of Lennox. 
Few mourned the fate of that selfish man. "The sil- 
lie regent was slane" — such was Bannatyne's com- 
ment. 

When the discomfited party regained the capi- 
tal " they were," says Melville, " very unwelcome 
guests to the Laird of Grange, who lamented heav- 



Sir mUliam Mtkalh^, Km. 



97 



ily the Regent's slaughter, and said that if he knew 
who did that foul deed, or who dire61:ed it to be 
done, he would take revenge thereof with his own 
hand. And whereof he used to be meek and gentle, 
he now broke out with hard language against the 
disorder and greediness of them and called them 
snafflers and beasts." 

The Earl of Mar was chosen Regent, and he 
promptly undertook measures against those in the 
Castle. Grange had made himself full master of the 
capital, and the Regent's forces took up their quar- 
ters at Leith. It was a fearful winter in Lothian, with 
hunger and suffering within the city, and savage 
campaigning and the gibbeting of unhappy prison- 
ers without the walls. The Earl of Mar was a man 
of honour, and sickening of such proceedings he 
withdrew early in 1572 to Stirling. But Morton con- 
tinued in command before the capital, and stamped 
his savage chara6ler as well as his name upon the 
cruel events occurring there. Randolph had been 
supplanted by Killigrew in Scotland, and we find 
Sir William Drury, the Marshal of Berwick, passing 
to and fro between Edinburgh and the Tweed on 
diplomatic missions. The Regent would fain have 
composed the troubles, and he sent Melville pri- 
vately to the Castle to persuade Grange to agree to 
a truce. Lethington was against any concessions at 
this time. He knew that Mar was not the real ruler 
in the land and he dreaded the wrath of Morton. 
Moreover, the Queen's fortunes had brightened. 
Though Herries had deserted to the Regent, the 
Hamiltons were again dominant in the West, while 
Adam Gordon was waging a conquering campaign 
in the North. But Grange "had great displeasure to 
see Scotsmen so furiously bent against each other;" 
he believed in Mar, and the Secretary for once was 

obliged 






98 Sir mniiam Mthalhv, Knt. 

obliged to yield. So it fell out that in the midsummer 
of 1572 an Abstinence was concluded betwixt the 
Regent and the party of the Queen. 



"BOOE^V 



"BOOK^V 



n 



'BOOK^V 




HOW (Grange defended the Qastle against the (JBn0= 
liSf) who were assisted by all SCOTLAND, and how the 
Prophecy of 3!0f)n ISnor was at length Fulfilled. 

N the first of August, 1 572, the 
rampart guns were blank-shot- 
ted and their rapid booming an- 
nounced to all the countryside 
that the truce had begun. The 
townsfolk came thronging back 
to their long-deserted homes, 
the Market Cross was adorned 
with tapestries, banners were displayed and the old 
town seemed merry in the first joy of returning 
peace. The great guns were removed from the city 
walls, from the Kirk of Field and from the steeple- 
head of St. Giles, and carried back within the Castle. 
Grange was clearly in a yielding mood. He declared 
that " he would not sell his duty to His Prince and 
Country for advantage but would serve the King to 
settle the Estate. If God should be pleased to grant 
the Queen her liberty he doubted not but she and her 
son should agree betwixt themselves, to which all 
honest and good subjects would consent." For him- 
self and his colleagues he desired"only liberty peace- 
fully to enjoy their own Livings." In this statement 
lay the very kernel of the Captain's difficulty. Their 
own livings had been forfeited to the Earl of Morton, 
and that powerful peer was unlikely to yield up his 
spoil for the asking. Then both Maitland and Bal- 
four 



I02 



The Life and ^^Catl^ of 



four were in deadly terror of being called to account 
for Darnley's murder, and it would be difficult to ar- 
range a guarantee strong enough to tempt these men 
beyond the Castle walls. In the meantime Grange 
stood bovnd for their protection. 

Two events now occurred to cloud still further the 
fair prospeCl of peace; the first was the death of 
the Regent Mar, the other the arrival of the news 
of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day in Paris. 
The Regent was nobly treated by the Earl of Mor- 
ton at his house of Dalkeith, and shortly after, he 
was seized with "a vehement sickness" which in a 
few days caused his death. The reputation of Mor- 
ton was such that it was freely bruited abroad that 
the Regent "had gotten wrong at His banquet." It 
was late in August that the news arrived of the 
massacre in Paris. All the old hatred of the Roman 
Church flashed up again in Scotland. The Queen's 
flag, floating from David's Tower, became to the 
people of Edinburgh the emblem of idolatry and 
murder. The preachers cried out in wrath against 
those who would bring in the Popish Queen, and 
cause the streets of Edinburgh, like those of Paris, 
to run with the blood of the faithful. We can well 
believe that these were trying days for Grange. He 
was standing for the safety of his friends, for the 
rights of his Queen, whom he believed to have been 
wronged; but his whole nature must have revolted 
against this latest news from France. His enemies 
taunted him with fighting the battle of the Pope, 
and claimed that he kept his flag afloat by the aid 
of Charles IX and the Duke of Alva. He could not 
altogether give the lie to such charges as these. For 
him the times were clearly out of joint. He had been 
driven far from the paths in which he walked be- 
fore Mary Stuart had returned to Scotland. 

Among 



Sh' millxmx l^itfealD^, Km. 103 

Among those whom the truce had brought back 
to the Scottish capital was John Knox. Again he 
took up his abode at the old house in the High 
Street. He made his way with pain to the pulpit in 
St. Giles, and lifted his now feeble voice to comfort 
his faithful brethren and to warn and admonish all 
such as opposed his doctrines. As the autumn waned 
he lay upon his death-bed, and in these last hours of 
his stormy life his heart yearned for his pupil within 
the Castle. "That man's soul is dear to me, and I 
would not have it perish if I could save it.'' He ex- 
plained to those about him that the severity he had 
used against Grange was only to bring him to ac- 
knowledge his shameful declining, that thereby he 
might be brought to repentance. "You have been 
witnesses of the former courage and constancy of 
Grange in the cause of God; but now, alas, into 
what a gulf has he precipitated himself." Then he 
called to him Master David Lindesay, the Minister 
of Leith, and besought him in this fashion: "I have 
desired all this day to have you that I may send you 
to yon man in the Castle whom ye know I have loved 
so dearly. Go, I pray, and tell him that I have sent 
you once more to warn him, and bid him, in the 
name of God, to leave that evil cause and give over 
that Castle. If not, he shall be brought down over the 
walls of it with shame, and hang against the sun. 
So God has assured me." 

" And now Mr. David, howbeit he thought the mes- 
sage hard and the threatening over particular, yet 
obeyed, and passed to the Castle." He held speech 
with the Captain and thought him" somewhatmoved " 
by the message he brought from the friend and 
counsellor of his youth. From him the Captain passed 
to the Secretary Lethington, with whom he con- 
ferred a while, and then came out to Mr. David 

again, 



I04 



The Life and J^mtl^ of 



again, and said to him, " Go tell Mr. Knox he is but 
a drytting prophet." We have seen that among the 
preachers Lethington was held responsible for the 
perversion of Grange, and this episode forms a sug- 
gestive pi6lure in support of the theory. At first 
the Captain seems moved, but then coming under 
the influence of Maitland's charm and subtle tongue 
he returns a scornful message. This is doubtless the 
way that things went within the Castle in the year 
1572. When the Captain's message was delivered 
to the dying preacher he murmured sadly, "I am 
sorry that so it should befall him, yet God assures 
me there is mercy for his soul." Then at the thought 
of Lethington the old fierceness flashed for a mo- 
ment in his dimming eyes, and his voice took on new 
strength with the words, " For that other, I have no 
warrant that ever he shall be well." On the twenty- 
fourth of November, 1572, the spirit of the stern 
preacher took its flight, and from now on it was 
common talk among the faithful that the doom of 
Grange was sealed, that he was to be dragged forth 
from the Castle and hanged in the face of the sun. 
On the same day that John Knox died, James Doug- 
las, Earl of Morton, became Regent of Scotland. He 
had been the dominant fa6lor in Scottish politics 
ever since the death of Murray, and his eleftion to 
the Regency was but the acknowledgement of his 
standing. The alliance between Elizabeth and him- 
self had proved of mutual advantage. He served her 
necessities far better in Scotland than if he had been 
a man of more honest sort. For the moment the new 
Regent seemed anxious that the arrangement in- 
tended between Mar and the people in the Cas- 
tle should be carried out. Sir James Melville was 
charged by Morton to confirm the offers of the late 
Regent, and further to suggest that the Bishopric of 

St. 



Sir mUliam ISitfialt)^, Knt. 



105 



St. Andrews and the Castle of Blackness be con- 
ferred upon the Laird of Grange. " Every one within 
the Castle should be restored to their lands and pos- 
sessions as before." To these suggestions Grange 
ag:reed. " He would cause all the rest of the Oueen's 
party to agree with the Regent," but he refused to 
take the Bishopric of St. Andrews and Castle of 
Blackness, desiring only his own lands. But now the 
Regent discovered to Melville the evil subtlety of 
his ways. He did not, he explained, wish an agree- 
ment upon the part of the whole faftion of the 
Queen. On the contrary he desired that this danger- 
ous party should be broken and divided. He pre- 
ferred that the responsibility for great crimes and 
extortions committed during the late troubles should 
be laid upon Huntley and the Hamiltons rather than 
upon those in the Castle, for by the wreck of the 
former he would gain greater profit, as they had 
much wealth and broad lands to reward him for his 
labour. He charged Melville to say this unto Grange, 
and that he "must agree without the Hamiltons and 
the Earls of Huntley and Argyle, or the said Lords 
would agree without him and those in the Castle." 
To this suggestion Grange replied that it "was 
neither godly nor just dealing;" that he would have 
none of it. " If his friends would abandon him and 
agree without him and those in his company he had 
deserved better at their hands, yet he had rather 
that they should leave and deceive him than that he 
should do it unto them." There was nothing more 
to be said as betwixt the Castle and the Regent 
Morton. On the morning of January 1, 1573, the 
Queen's flag again floated above David's Tower, 
and the booming of a culverin on the Castle walls 
announced that the truce was over. The Regent had 
made good use of his time. " Money is the man in 

Scotland," 



io6 The Life and l^eati^ of 

Scotland," was Drury's comment after a negotiation 
with Morton, and with England behind him the Re- 
gent had indeed engaged in some profitable bribery. 
The Queen's party had not recovered from the dis- 
may into which the news from Paris had plunged 
it, and many of the leaders proved vulnerable to 
the Regent's persuasions. The universal hatred of 
the burghers in Edinburgh for the Castle, and what 
it was believed to stand for, made it easy for Mor- 
ton during the last days of the truce to throw a 
considerable force of King's men into the town and 
ere6l defences at important points. He had to vio- 
late a solemn agreement in order to effe6l this, but 
perhaps Grange was the only man surprised by such 
perfidy. When the Captain looked down upon the 
crowded roofs of the old town in the grey light of 
the New Year's morning, it was barricaded against 
him and swarming with armed foes. 

What Morton had threatened in regard to the 
Hamiltons he brought to pass. In February, at Perth, 
a reconciliation was efFe6led between the King's 
party and the Hamilton faftion. Sir James Balfour, 
for whose security Grange had pledged his honour 
and risked his life, was one of the most prominent 
figures at this love-feast in Perth. He had slipped 
away from the Castle and succeeded in making his 
peace with the Regent. He now turned his back 
upon Grange and his comrades. There is in the his- 
tory of these times no mystery of Balfour. He was 
an arrant knave, the falsest of the false in an age 
when few men were true. Grange was notified of 
the defe6f:ion of Huntley, Argyle and the Hamil- 
tons in a letter " lamenting that the straits they were 
in had compelled them to accept that agreement 
which the Regent had offered them, praying him 
not to take it in evil part, seeing they had no house 

nor 



Sir milliam MtfiHiav^ Knt. 



107 



nor strength to retire themselves to. They gave him 
many thanks for the help and assistance he had 
made them, which they said they would never for- 
get so long as God would lend them their lives." 
So Grange found himself isolated and deserted 
within the walls of the Maiden Castle. There were 
with him the Lord Home and a few other gentle- 
men of note. Not only had Balfour proved recreant, 
but Chatelherault, bowed with age and illness, had 
made his peace with the Regent and been allowed 
to retire to his estates. The garrison numbered 
hardly two hundred men, and the situation was 
complicated from a military standpoint by the pre- 
sence of the Countess of Argyle, of Lady Kirkaldy 
and of Lady Maitland, the Secretary's wife, whom, as 
Mary Fleming, we have met before at the Queen's 
Court. It is clear that Grange had no illusions as to 
what the future had in store for him, but Maitland, 
racked with disease and in dread of Morton's hate, 
still grasped at straws. He assured the Captain that 
his wit could still hold the English Queen in play ; 
he was certain that Charles IX and the Duke of 
Alva would not leave them to their fate. Killigrew, 
the English Ambassador, urged warmly the surren- 
der of the Castle, but Morton would no longer con- 
sider terms. "Though my friends have forsaken 
me," said the Captain, "and the city of Edinburgh 
have done so too, yet will I defend this Castle to the 
last." 

The Captain's guns were a6live throughout the 
montli of January, and the Regent made no pro- 
gress in his attempt upon the Castle. Great barricades 
protc6ted the entrance to St. Giles and to the Tol- 
booth, and in the shelter of these we find the burgh- 
ers passing calmly to service in the one, and tiie 
Lords to sittings of Parliament in the other. But the 

shot 



,o8 The Life and J^tati^ of 

shot from the Castle searched many quarters of the 
town, and made life therein difficult and precarious. 
So long as England lay quiet and his supplies held 
out, Grange became satisfied that he could hold his 
own against the Regent. But the Castle was ill fur- 
nished for a siege. The Captain's brother, James 
Kirkaldy, returning from France with a supply of 
money and necessaries for the garrison, had landed 
at Blackness Castle. He found Sir James Balfour in 
command there, and not knowing of his treachery 
to Grange fell a prisoner into his hands. He was 
further undone by the wiles of Helen Kirkaldy, his 
wife, who had been seduced by the Earl of Morton. 
James Kirkaldy barely escaped with his life, but at 
last made his way through great perils to the Castle 
of Edinburgh, where he arrived with empty hands. 
Goaded, perhaps, by the tale of the sufferings his 
brother had undergone. Grange, in the dead of a 
stormy February night, made a savage sortie against 
the besieging lines. The trenches were cleared and 
their affrighted defenders were driven through the 
Lawnmarket in wild confusion. The torch was ap- 
plied to buildings in the Castle Wynd, and fanned 
by the strong gale, a conflagration was soon in 
progress. To add to the terror of the flames the 
Castle guns played fiercely upon the stricken dis- 
tri6l, and rendered perilous the efforts of the burgh- 
ers to control the fire. This event added to the 
hatred of the town against the Castle, nor, after the 
lapse of three centuries, is it clear that any military 
purpose was served by this savage foray. It must 
be regarded as the method chosen by the Captain 
to notify the Regent and the city that James Kir- 
kaldy had rejoined the garrison. 

Early in March the Regent, who had been ham- 
pered by the lack of engineering skill among his 

forces. 



Sir mUliam Mtkalhv, Knt. 



109 



forces, was joined by a body of English pioneers. 
Thereupon he began the erection of a battery in 
Castle Hill Street. But the work was much impeded 
by the Castle guns, and on the night of the fifteenth 
the Captain headed another sortie, routed the pio- 
neers and cast down their work. Morton was dis- 
couraged, and a few days later he arranged with 
the Castle for a truce which should continue for the 
remainder of the month. 

The Queen of England now realized that the 
Castle of Edinburgh would prove a hard nut for 
her Scottish friends to crack. As the last hold of 
Mary Stuart's power in Scotland she could not af- 
ford that it should remain untaken. To be sure, she 
was under treaty to Charles IX not to interfere by 
force of arms in Scottish affairs ; but this treaty was 
now more than twelve months old, and all England 
was of the opinion that agreements with the mon- 
ster who fired upon his subje61;s from the windows 
of the Louvre were not of a binding nature. So an 
arrangement was soon made by which the Marshal 
of Berwick should advance his troops to Edinburgh 
to assist the Regent against the Castle. We have 
seen how the mission of James Kirkaldy to France 
was brought to naught. Lord Seton had fared no 
better in his efibrts to succour the Oueen's friends, 
and was wandering through England in the guise 
of a beggar. As Grange trod his far-viewing bat- 
tlements he knew that the game was nearly over. 
The spring-time was at hand, and the budding green 
of the coming season lay bright upon the broad 
landscape, from the sparkling waters of the German 
Ocean to where Ben Lomond and Ben Ledi lifted 
their snow-capped summits against the west. At his 
feet lay the stricken city, and now from the dark and 
narrow ways there floated up to his ears the roll of 

the 



no The life and J^eatl^ of 

the English drums. Day by day he could see the Old 
Bands of Berwick marching in the town, — arque- 
busiers, sappers and cannoneers, — while over the 
road from Leith came rumbling all the cumbersome 
machinery of their siege and battering trains. Grim 
redoubts began to arise all about him, planned by 
skilful heads and built by sturdy hands. It was now 
the Castle against all Scotland and England. 

Sir William Drury, the Marshal of Berwick, was 
in command of the forces of her English Majesty. 
He had with him, besides Sir Thomas Sutton, Mas- 
ter General of English Ordnance, such experienced 
captains as Sir George Carey and Sir Henry Lee 
of Ditchley. The Castle was soon well-nigh girdled 
by the English batteries, and on the seventeenth of 
May they opened fire. Edinburgh had never ex- 
perienced such a flaming and thundering of great 
ordnance. Day and night the uproar went on. Leth- 
ington could not abide the din, the shouting of the 
cannoneers, the roar of the guns, the rattle of great 
shot against the Castle masonry, and the clanking 
and creaking of the crude machinery of war. He 
was moved to the low vaults under David's Tower, 
where these sounds were dulled. After forty-eight 
hours of cannonading, three of the Castle towers 
had been demolished and several guns dismounted 
and wrecked. Before the close of the week David's 
Tower had been so battered that the English gun- 
ners could see through ragged rents in the wall the 
vaulted ceiling of the great hall within. On the 
twenty-third of May this whole stru6f ure, which had 
frowned upon its cliff for nearly four centuries, came 
crashing down in utter ruin. Still the Captain and his 
men toiled manfully at their guns. The fire from 
St. Margaret's Tower was so severe that Drury's 
batteries on that side were silenced more than once. 

"There 



Sir Giitliiam i^trfialDi?, Knt. 



1 1 1 



"There was a very great slaughter amongst the Eng- 
Hsh cannoneers," writes Robert Birrel in liis Diary, 
"sundry of them having their legs and arms torn 
from their bodies in the air by the violence of the 
great shot." 

On the twenty-fourth of May the English fire 
concentrated upon the Constable Tower, and as it 
crumbled under the bombarding, great fragments of 
the masonry went crasliing over the clili". Within 
the town the faithful bethought themselves of the 
sayings of Knox as to the Captain's fate, and how 
the Castle should "run like a sandglass." On the 
twenty-sixth of the month, or the ninth day from 
the opening of the cannonade, Drury delivered his 
infantry attack, hi the early morning he moved his 
lines in from the west, and then stormed the Spur 
overlooking the town. With his sadly depleted gar- 
rison Grange could make no adequate resistance 
against this formidable movement. On the wx\st the 
English were thrown back, but at ten o'clock, after 
three hours of fighting, tliey were masters of the 
Spur. With this position the garrison lost their last 
supply of water, the other wells having become 
choked with the fallen rubbish. After dark an at- 
tempt was made to obtain water from "St. Mar- 
garet's well without the Castle on the north side," 
men being lowered over the clifi" by cords. The Re- 
gent pnjniptly discovered this move, poisoned the 
supply, and .so made greater havoc within the gar- 
rison than had been accomplished by all the gun 
fire. At last, on the twenty-eighth of May, there 
was a lull in tlie fighting, and the English can- 
noneers descried a tall figure in full armour stand- 
ing anfid the wreck of the Castle walls. It was the 
Captain, and he held in his hand a white wand as a 
token of peace. lie (Icsircd to speak with "his old 

Irleiul 



I 12 



The Life and l^eatl^ of 



friend and fellow soldier, the Marshal of Berwick." 
And now because the Castle entrance was closed by 
the wreck of the bombardment, the Captain came 
down over the side of the walls. When John Knox 
had declared from his pulpit in St. Andrews that 
the Castle "should run as a sandglass" and that the 
Captain should not pass out by the gate, his friend, 
Robert Hamilton, had ventured to question the wis- 
dom of such statements.* To which the preacher 
had vehemently rejoined, "God is my warrant, and 
ye shall see it." And now behold, on this twenty- 
eighth day of May, 1573, Master Hamilton found 
himself in the shadow of the Castle rock. He beheld 
"the foreworks of the Castle all demolished, and 
moving like a sandy brae ; he saw the men of war 
all set in order, the Captain with a little cut of a 
staff in his hand, taken down over the wall upon 
the ladders." He was compelled to glorify God and 
to declare that John Knox was a great prophet. 

Within the walls of Drury's lodging. Grange, with 
Sir Robert Melville, held frank and manly discourse 
with the Marshal of Berwick. Grange desired to 
yield the Castle on condition that Maitland and 
Home should be permitted to retire into England, 
and he to live on his estates in Fife. Drury was 
consenting to this arrangement, but when the mat- 
ter was submitted to the Regent he would hear of 
no such agreement. Grange and Maitland, with four- 
teen other gentlemen of the garrison, must submit 
unconditionally to him, though the English Queen 
should be the arbitress of their fate. So Grange 
made his way back behind his ruined walls, deter- 
mined to abide the worst and die sword in hand. 
But now he found his soldiers in open revolt. They 
had done all that men could do. They were tortured 
by illness, wounds, hunger and thirst. The Castle 

must 



Sir mtlltam i^trfialDt^ Knt. 



113 



must be given up, or within six hours they would 
hang Maitland from the walls. On the day follow- 
ing these events the Captain came quietly down and 
yielded himself to the Marshal of Berwick. That 
stout soldier received his brave enemy with assur- 
ances of his prote61:ion and the favour of his Sov- 
ereign. Then the little garrison, bearing arms and 
carrying their standard, passed down into the town 
followed by the hootings and execration of the 
people. Lethington, in the last stages of a torturing 
malady, was conveyed to Leith; Grange and his 
Lady were entertained at the quarters of the Mar- 
shal of Berwick. The Regent was in a rage at the 
course pursued by Drury. Killigrew, the English 
Ambassador, harshly criticised the Marshal's a6lion, 
and wrote to London, agreeing with the Regent that 
Grange and Maitland were fitter for the next world 
than for this. Elizabeth disowned the terms of her 
General, and ordered that the prisoners from the 
Castle should be delivered into the hands of the Re- 
gent as the representative of the King's power in 
Scotland. Drury took "heavy displeasure" at this. 
He was, we are told, "so affronted because of the 
breach of his promise, and that the appointment 
which he had made with the Castle of Edinburgh 
was not kept, that he would tarry no longer in his 
office at Berwick, seeing he had lost his credit and 
reputation, for he was a plain Man of War, and 
loved Grange dearly." 

The Captain was removed to the Palace of Holy- 
rood, and kept in stri6t ward within gloomy cham- 
bers which he had seen bright and merry in the first 
days of the Queen's Court. Here he learned of Leth- 
ington 's death, " after the old Roman fashion, as was 
said, to prevent his coming to the shambles with the 
rest." There was no lamentation for that strange, 

shrewd 



1 14 The UiZ and J^eatl^ of 

shrewd courtier whose charm no man could resist and 
whose word no man could trust. He had fascinated 
the English Queen,who had styled him" The Flower 
of the Wits of Scotland," and it was to her that he 
was indebted for the last poor favour of a Christian 
burial. He was the Scottish Macchiavelli, the " Cha- 
maeleon"-f of Buchanan ; and more than three hun- 
dred years after his squalid ending men still debate 
the mystery of his chara6ler and life. 

Grange underwent some form of trial, few details 
of which have come down to us. There were no four 
thousand gentlemen to acclaim him with "merry 
and lusty shouts," and to compel his purging by their 
show of swords and spears. He was condemned to 
die upon the gibbet as a traitor to James VI. There 
were many among the Lords who deplored his sad 
fate, but the fanatical Lindesay, now Provost of Edin- 
burgh, alone made open protest. He it was who 
would have slain the Queen's priest at the altar and 
who had threatened her at Lochleven. But Grange 
was an old comrade in arms. They had fought to- 
gether against the French in Fife and against the 
Queen at Langside battle. He denounced the ver- 
di6l that would bring so stout a soldier to a felon's 
death. One hundred barons and gentlemen, kinsmen 
of the House of Kirkaldy, came forward with the of- 
fer to bind themselves to serve the House of Douglas 
in perpetual man-rent if the life of Grange should be 
spared. Large sums of money were also offered to 
purchase the clemency of Morton. That eminent 
man was in straits betwixt his avarice and his fierce 
yearning for revenge. For the moment he leaned 
toward the sordid solution of the affair. But now the 
preachers interfered. Had not John Knox prophe- 
sied the Captain's fate .'' Had not the whole city wit- 
nessed the truth of his pious forecastings in regard 

to 



Sir mUliam lattfealD^, Km. 



115 



to the Castle? It only remained for the Captain to 
"hang in the face of the sun," and the words of the 
man of God would have been fulfilled ! The Regent 
declared to Killigrew that considering what has been, 
and daily is, spoken by the preachers "it were bet- 
ter that Grange should die." It is to the preachers 
that we are indebted for our knowledge of the last 
hours of a gallant man. Mr. David Lindesay, the 
Minister of Leith, whom we have seen before upon 
a notable occasion, was with the Captain on the last 
day of his life. Like Knox he had loved him well, 
but his affe6f ion was of a human and genial sort. 
" Mr. David, the morn by nine hour, comes again to 
" the Captain and resolves him that it behooved him 
" to suffer. 'O then, Mr. David,' says he, 'for our 
" auld friendship and for Christ's sake, leave me 
" not ! ' So he remains with him, who, pacing up and 
" down a while, and seeing the day fair, the sun 
" clear, and a scaffold preparing at the Cross in the 
" High Gate, he falls in a great study, and alters 
"countenance and colour; which when Mr. David 
" perceived, he came to him, and asked him what 
" he was doing. ' Faith, Mr. David,' says he, ' I per- 
" ceive well now that Mr. Knox was the true ser- 
" vant of God, and his threatening is to be accom- 
" plished;' and desired to hear the truth of it again. 
" The which Mr. David rehearsed, and added there- 
" unto that the same Mr. Knox at his returning had 
" told him that he was earnest with God for him, 
" was sorry for the love he bore him that that should 
" come to his body, but was assured that there was 
" mercy for his soul. The which he would have re- 
" peated over again to him, and thereupon was greatly 
" comforted, and began to be of good and cheerful 
" courage. In the end he beseeches Mr. David not 
" to leave him, but to convoy him to the place of 

"execution. 



ii6 The tiiZ and ?^eat]^ of 

"execution, 'And take heed/ says he, 'I hope in 
" God, after I shall be thought past, to give you a 
" token of the assurance of mercy to my soul, ac- 
" cording to the speaking of the man of God/ So 
" about three hours after noon, he was brought out 
" and Mr. David with him; and about four, the sun 
" being about west of the north-west neuk of the 
" steeple, he was put off the ladder, and his face first 
" fell to the east; but within a bonnie while turned 
" about to the west and there remained against the 
" sun; at which time Mr. David ever present, says 
" he marked him, when all thought he was away, to 
" lift up his hands that were bound before him and 
" lay them down again softly ; which moved him with 
" exclamation to glorify God before all the people." 
Surely so good a soldier had earned a better fate, yet 
had he died with Norman Leslie at Renti, or fallen 
in the defence of the Fifeland against the French, 
one of the darkest epochs in Scottish history would 
have been unrelieved by those honourable and gentle 
qualities that appeared in him, and were sadly lack- 
ing among the high-born men with whom his lot 
was cast. It is a fine thing to have inspired the beau- 
tiful tribute with which Sir James Melville has 
adorned his Memoirs: 

" He was humble, gentle, and meek like a lamb in 
" the house, but like a lion in the fields. He was 
" a lusty, stark, and well proportioned personage, 
" hardy and of a magnanimous courage; secret and 
" prudent in all his enterprises, so that never one 
" that he made or devised miscarried when he was 
" present himself. And when he was viftorious, he 
" was very merciful, and naturally liberal, an enemy 
" to greediness and ambition, and a friend to all men 
" in adversity. He fell oft in trouble in prote61:ing 
" innocent men from such as would oppress them. 

"... He 



Sir mUlimx i^itfealtJt^ Knt. 



117 



"... He was as much envied by them that were of 
" a vile and unworthy nature as he was beloved by 
" all honest men." 

It was early in June, 1573, that the Queen of 
Scots, pining in her English prison, learned of the 
fall of the Castle. The Earl of Shrewsbury was a 
harsh jailor, and he found joy in being the bearer of 
such tidings. "She makes little show of any grief," 
he writes to Burleigh, "and yet it nips her very 
near." A few weeks more and the Earl was able 
to pass again into the presence of his captive and 
report the death of the Knight of Grange. Which 
tidings the Queen received with much emotion, 
and with these words, " How can your Queen ex- 
pe6t that I will thank her for depriving me of my 
only friends.^ Alas! Henceforth I will neither hear 
nor speak of Scotland more!" 

There is in the possession of the Honourable Mrs. 
Baillie Hamilton a portrait which is claimed to be a 
likeness of the hero of this sketch. It is attributed to 
Fran9ois Clouet, and is believed to have been painted 
about the year 1555, or when Grange was serving 
in the cavalry of Henry II. Tradition, as well as the 
internal evidence, is in its favour, and in point of 
authenticity it stands in the same category as the 
Holyrood portrait of the Earl of Murray which has 
long been accepted as a faithful likeness of that 
distinguished man. The face of Grange in this work 
is refined and commanding, the mouth firm, the 
complexion pale, the hair and moustache light in 
colour. 

But what portrait can displace the memory we 
have of Grange as the army of the Lords takes up 
the march for Edinburgh on the evening of Car- 
berry Hill.'* The west is reddening behind the dark 
and broken outline of old Edinburgh town, the fierce 

soldiery 



ii8 Sir 2:^iiitam MrfealD^^ Knt. 

soldiery are thronging toward the Queen with disre- 
spe6lful menace, the frenzied woman cowers in ter- 
ror upon her frightened palfrey, and then we see the 
Knight of Grange, ere6l, with head uncovered, rid- 
ing alone at her bridle-rein, his great sword flash- 
ing in the sunset light as he beats back the ruffians 
that would affront her. Is there any finer pi6lure 
than this in Scottish history? 

'"'' He was of a Magnanimous Courage'' 

'■'■and a Friend to all Men" 

'■''in Adversity." 



containing 

e^ Hallat^ ^hQotes on this Work 

&c. 



The ^allat 



IT appears that Grange was accused in his day of being 
a bad poet, as well as a bad subject to James VI. Ban- 
natyne prints in full the "rowstie ryme," with the follow- 
ing preface: "At this time come fourth a ballate, direct 
(as it had bene) from the captane of the castell, complean- 
ing, as he lay vpoun the craig of Edinburgh : And becaus 
we neuer vnderstoud the vaine of his poesie of befoir, ye 
sail reid, gif ye pleis, that ye may judge out of what arrow- 
bag sic arrowes are shott." 

At the cajlle of Edinburch, 

Vpoun the bank baith greine and rouch, 

"As myne alone I lay, 
Ifith paper, pen, and inke in hand, 
Mufmg, as I could vnderfiand, 

Offthefuddan decay ' 

'That vnto this puir natioune 

Apeirandly dois come: 
I f and our Congregatione 

Was caus of all, andfome 
Whois au6lhoris, infiruUtoris, 
Hes blindit thamefo long, 
That, blameles andfchameles. 
Both riche and poure they wrong. 

Thefe wicked, vaine veneniaris. 
Proud poyfoned Pharifianes, 

With thair blind guydis but grace, 
Hes caufed the puire cuntrie 
AJfft vnto thair traitorie, 

Thair 



122 



The ^Ballat on 



Hhair Prince for to difplace: 
For teine I can not tefiifie 

How wrangoujlie they wrocht. 
When thai thair Prince Jo pitioujlie 

In frifone ftrong had brocht; 
Abufed hir, accufed hir, 
With fer pent war dis fell. 
Of fchavelis and rebellis, 
Lyk hiddeous houndis of hell. 

'Thefe dif paired hirdis of Beliall, 
Hhocht nocht but to advance thaimfell, 

Fra thai had hir down throwin ; 
With errore and kypocrifie, 
To committ open traitorie. 

As cleirlie now is knowin: 
But the grit God omnipotent, 

'That fecreitis thochtis doisferche, 
Releivit hes that innocent 

Out of thair rage fo fearce ; 
Provydet and guyded 
Hir to vncouth land, 
Whair wander andfclander 
With enemeis none Jlio f and ! 

Sen tyme of which eje5fione, 
This cuntrie is come in fubje£tione 

And daylie feruitud. 
With men of weir in garifone. 
To the commones opprejjione, 

Byflicht, andfuddrone bloud; 
Whofe craft, ingyne, and poly cie 

Full reddy bent is euer. 
Be treafone vnder amitie 
Our nobles to dijjeaver: 

Some 



Sir milliam latrftaltiv, Kfit. ,23 

Some rubbing, fame budding, 
Thair Jlndie thai employ, 
Thatjlicktlie, vnrichtlie. 
They may this realme enjoy. 

'This guy ding gart grit greif aryfe 
In me, vsha nawayis culd devyis 

To mend this grit ?mfchance ; 
And als I argoued all the cais, 
I hard anejay, within this place, 

'■'■IVith help of God and France 
I fall, within ane litillfpace. 

Thy dolour is all to drcfel 
With help of Chrif thovj fall, or Pafche, 

Thy kyndlie Prince poJJ'es; 
Detrufaris, refuifaris. 
Of hir authoritie; 
Nanc cairand or fpairand, 
Shall outher die or Jlie. 

^'•Thought God, of his jufl jugment. 
Thole thaini to be ane punijhmetit 

To hir, thair fupreme heid ; 
Tit fen thay war participant 
With hir, and Jlio now penitent, 

Rycht fuirly they may dreid; 
As wicked fcourges lies bene feine 

Get for the feu r gene hyre, 
Whenfynneris repentis from the fplene, 

Thefcourge cajl in the fyre: 
Swa M or tone, be for tone. 
May get this fame reward; 
His boa/ling, nor pnfling, 
I doe it not rcguard. 

''Bayth 



124 ^^^ 'Ballat on 



'■''Bayth him and all thair cumpany^ 
Hkocht England wald tliaim fortifie 

I cair thaim nocht a leike; 
For all thair grit munitione, 
I am infuire tnitione, 

'This hauld it fall me hip. 
My realme and Princes libertie 

Thairin I fall defend. 
When traitouris falbe hangit hie. 

Or make fome fchamfull end. 
AJpuire thame, I cuire them, 
Ewin as thei do deferve; 
Thair trejfone, this cejfone. 
It fall not make mefuerue: 

'■'•For I haue men and meit aneugh. 
They know I am ane tuilzeour teoch. 

And wilbe rychtfone greved; 
When thei haue tint als many teith 
As thei did at thefeige of Leith, 

They wilbe faine to leive it. 
Then quha, I pray you, falbe boun 

Thar tinfall to advance. 
Or gifftc compofitione 

As thei gat then of France? 
This fy lit, begylit. 
They will bot get the glaikis ; 
Cum thai heir, thir tuo yeir. 
They fall not mijje thair paikis. 

'•'As for my nychtbouris, Edinburch toun. 
What falbe thair part, vp or downe, 

I can not yit declair; 
Bot one thing I make manifefi, 
Gif thei me ony thing moleji 

'Thair 



Sir mtlliam iStrfealt)^, Knt. 125 

Tkair bnithis falbe made hair. 
Gif fyre may thair buildingis facke^ 

Or bullat beat thaim downe. 
They fall nocht faill that end to mak 

Thejtaires made in this toun. 
Swa vfe thaim, and chufe thaim. 
What pairt thei will enfew; 
Forfake me, or take me. 
They fall drink as thei brew!" 

He bade me rife and mufe na mair. 
But pray to God both lait and aire, 
Tofaue this noble ludge. 
Which is, in all profperitie. 
And lykwayis in aduerfitie. 

Our Princes plane refuge. 
Thairfoir, all trew men I exhort. 
That ye with me accord. 
That we all, baith in erneft andfport, 
Afke at the leving Lord. 
That hanged, or manged. 
Mot ilk man mak his end, 
Wha dewlie and trewlie 
Wald nocht this houfe defend! 

Finis. 



U^tes 



Gtriie t)aafome aDmontttotm fc 



tff|% TLamp of ICcl)t,anTi pn'cleis 0r(tU of itjipre. 
1119 £D ttencip bnfcbt in manfail deiDfs moanfits 
^ ^ <gD lajo^t^p lutein mod baujeam tsac 9 totte, 
ID Capitane ap conOant to tl)e bing. 
£) KLuOte )(Lo;&,tbat tnili natoapiet inaUng, 
iS!) :aartoun banlDiOf c^eualtp ti}e floute 
£> pet^e |&;u>ue(l,but maib into ti)i0 isins 
i3D guOeip dSiange, but fpot bnto t^i0 ^ouie. 

CH tbe befeib to call to memojiie, 
Wit tooiittietieitis bone be t^at (a^ince (fncefr 
l&ing 3lame0 t^e f pft,qtil)a teais in ^euin (b l^e, 
Co toe qubatoas W tenHet; fetuanD betv. 
{^otD in tbe bap^e bOt tbe astfjS prtr, 
ainD liu'fit t^e Co a{! man tuR) luFe ane btljer 
ait nicbt to beb ^t0 fellotv anb W feic 
Cfteming t^e 80 t^o\D bab bene m b^tber. 

Cr3Inb bo\» bi£t S>one out iRegent oflRenottn 
mt&t xmi mitb (l5ob,qui)a bib tbic tbingi^ pet&if, 
•Cbocbt be be gone,anb toitb W Mi put boun 
Zit in t)i8 ipfe be luift tbe bp tbe laif. 
aip gentng tbe qubat tbing tbat tbott toalb !jaif, 
Benping nocbt tbat lap into bid banbid 
jfo^ tbP ferutce tbp fie tuajaf not to ctaif, 
Sot recompantit tottb golb, ttitb geir anb lanbiiJ. 

Canb qubcntbe BuKe put tbe to banifcbment, 
ainb fiom tbe belb tbp Ianbt0 monp jeie 
'Urbob) bnatoiB tbp felf gif be xom bf ligent 
%Q get tbp peav.anb flatb tbe of tbat boeie. 
ainb to tbe get tbp Ianb0 tbp gubis anb geir, 
■Cbocbt tbait toai fum tbat tuib tbp xotaxAi$ fnfeto 
Zit be to tbe gat tbame a0 is maift eleiv, 
CO p^eifbe tsais to tbe ane ^aifter trebo. 

Cfra tpme tbe 2lo;b bib call btm to tbat erne. 
3[Into tbCts iReaime tbat be Oilb ring allone 
l^e tbe eftemit of ftetbfoft faitb nioft fuce 
'Ql^baitfoic tbat baulb.anb mojitbie bous of Sone. 
l^e gaif to tbe toitb ^jotnallitt monp one, 
M bnto bim tbat be luifftt bp tbe teit 
Cbe qubiiti in betb be tvaib baue bone to none, 
^faiibi$b;etbettbat bcluiSxtbea. 

cr&eptoun.^cbtt James.botef tbe jfethteef of 
efter tbe feilb be gaif tbame in tbp cute mx 

'Cbe Buhe bim felf,anb i^etets tbotn bab tbair, 
f 0? in tbp banbis be tbotbt tbame ap moll tUte. 
&um faib to bim tbairin be bib ^jniure 
%o put ra motip greit men in tbp banbist 
i^ift anftoet t»a»,qubill tbat be mitbt Jnbure, 
0is( Ipfe anb ail.be tJoalb put in tbp banbis. 

Cl^auing tm baulD.ag J baue bone beclair, 
3[ln Counfcll boue tbe Coun uoitb ane tonfent 
CbeiCTit tbe to be tbait jBjioueft anb tbait flWafc 
310 man tbairto mrtt anb conuenient. 
mubilft oaf(te i0,<n beib ticbt ancient, 
^nbct tbe feing tbi0 ©utgb to tcull anb Iteit 
Buring tbp offlce.tulb tbotti Kanb content, 
•acboto mitbt to )Lo?btg be petigall anb peir. 

0°5Ebtf ofRcis tbe fartber DiD promote, 
3It neilJi0 na p^oif.tbp felf toill tefttfie 
aimang tbe X(nW tbotu gat baitij place anb bote 
ait£)ecceitCounrallinmateri3mo(lbfe 
JLpbe 80 tbame felfis fa tbap eaemit the, 
3IInto tbait cau0 baitb bent 3|uft anb bpjicbt 
xQuben tpme tequp;i0,it fuib liieurngtt be, 
tirbinti on bi0 beitb.tbat b;ocbt tbe to (ifc bicbt. 

Clin bumbili topfe beitfoir 3^ tbe Cf bojt, 
S^ith tentpue etc bnto mp caill attenb 
3n tbe brfpjie tb^e tbingis in tecmi0 reboot 
jfirlt in csobs cau0 be conitant to tbe enO. 
j&pne nitt out liiing.tvitb all tbp miOtt befenb 
i9imrelf,t)<£i la\nis,bi0 libertie anb Croun, 
Cb^iblp bnto tbe toatib tbo\» mab it benO 
0e tta0 tbF ^ailtet 23otb\x>eU ^aucb put bonn\ 



.iK«?l?S '^^''8«<'|int»)o>» toa0 ticbtfeiuent. 
50b gif tbe grace tbairin to petreucit 

WtpmeatzLeitb tbait toaanamanmait bent 

wi ipte no? lanbis tbat tpme tbotn tuib na felt, 
ap bentutanb qubaic gtiiteft tear Se banSa 

fliTh ?^i^^«""^«««''n«fra ttrangeria. 
<»RihJS2.?-^J'"l*' '"^•''oto n»onp boismXa 
25att5 tpmeanb tpbe fcbatoanb thahfoice ftS 
Jo^Jat^ntenttbatierabellfolbS^^^^ 



lri«Sw'''S'^ ^"^^ t^ap luib be aimapi0 treto 

Rrw,h*!?i?%°"'^^?ail laegent Oeto 

^baifl bi0 ftith Call baue tbe oner banb 
^bato anb bfe.be b?otbt in mebliiB 

^^^^ f^^ ^*"8<0 autbojiitie fall ttanb 
^^T}^ E'? ^^"^' ^8»" ^tt" Wm moleft 
asbtberta betfin qupetne0anb reft. 
(cr Cbfe goblp cau0 bib euer ptoftier m 

^&y^^ ^•"S' °"^ <!5ouernout anb opbe 
2Baitb at Catbattp anb tbe jLangfpbe biU 
Cbe miebtie ©ob toa0 euer on biS tpbe 
igoto in tbe i!io?tb bi0 faia tbap butft nocbt bpbe 
f "^'aittbwto tbat pak bib lot? tbait mm of Sic 
3tab quben tbap boat tbe laft tpme bpon dClpbe 
Cbair burft na fa into tbaft Hcbt appcir. 

CfiPuttbertboti) hnattiia toillnotbnpnneiC be. 
/So? neuer boaa fen Capn tbell aet» 
Cbe *cf ipture plane tbe fame bot0 teOifie 

j©f bmetolg toelLof eueriebice benube 
Cbotbt tbait tear nane bi0 beitb tbat toalb petfcto 
C^mitbtie «25ob be toaib Keuenge bi0 blubc. 
«<E.^*?i5?*!?."°f''^^^''an^o'<'5ob8ganepame 

^„71^^'"^°""5 "atWng be bo trane tbame 

anb Bufte Be aib ap tebbp fo? to lanb 
5^*S,Vlu"? ^"'^ °" ^^^^ of 2Crtbure fait 
^ubill tbat tpme cum bje faUlap on tbe toanb 
ainb gar our fata gif dene ouit all bebaft, 
Caubat neib0 pe faar, tbocbt Jngiab bo nippoit 
Co punet0 Qc a0 pjoublp boig Kcbeli \\,)s 

Cbat tpme at jLeitb tbotu bnatoiji tbapbtb comfoit 
aino maib b0 (re quben fttangerfi J)tD b0 quell. (b0 
anb neuer focbt na pjtoffite to tbatne fell 
Cbo to neib0 not feir,tbat boua tbap neuer craifit, 
Cbe Wegent fapwat fa fat aa H beir tell 
M0alb tboto be ufoo, tbait can na better baif it. 

0°Cbocbt at tbi0 tpme , tboto baif tbat toarlphe 
E"x^JlI''^"'"'"agiou0anbbalb fcraig, 

©Ob toill nocbt mp0 to fcutge tbe toitb a plaiff 
a- i? ^ WU0 tboto lat tbp cutage calO. 
m tboto map fe tbicb fcurgte monpfalb. 
^tb bpon tbame tbat pjwublp boia bifDane 
^cept tbe ZLojtb be toatcbeman of tbe balb 
^uba T»al6i0 tbe fame.tbair laubour ia m bane. 
a«^^.??l.''!?''^"5^^'''"*f'''*'''^""i8began, 
ainDal0bc0fcne,boto(!5obgartltpiocelD 
geitfotr 31 p?ap ^it Oo tbe tbing tboto can 
3into <BoD0 caua.anb to IReuenge bte Oeib. 
ainb gif tboto ftoetne.ritbt fait in batt J Xat^, 
Cbat ftnbjic fall tbp boingis oiftommenb 
3luife ticiton ftn noto i» tpme of ncib 
a^atb toem 31 p?ap tbi0 jS) cbebull tbat 31 fenb 
CJfmp^entit atebinborgb be IRobert )Le6p«ui6. 
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J\(ores 



BOOK I 

* Fought in September, 1513. 

t It is estimated that the population of England at the 
beginning of the sixteenth century numbered nearly four 
mDlion souls. Scotland could show less than a fifth of this 
number. 

J The Earl of Surrey "was appointed by King Henry at 
his going into France to be Lieutenant of the North Parts 
to defend the same against the King of Scots, if he chanced 
to invade the Kingdom, and had Commission and Author- 
ity to raise the Powers of the Counties of Chester, Lan- 
caster, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland, and 
the Bishoprick of Durhani." Histoiua Axglo-Scotica. 

§ James \T is credited w ith comparing the Kingdom of 
Fife with its girdle of fair towns to "a grey cloth mantle 
with its golden fringe." 

II April 17, 1544. 

**This comjiromise was due to the arguments of Sir 
George Douglas. "If we agree to this treaty," he urged, 
"we avoid a ijJoody and d(,'structi\e war and have a long 
period Ijefore us, during w hich the King of England, his 
son Prince I'xlw ard, or the infant Queen Marv mav one of 
them die so that the treaty will be broken off." 

it Evers, will I Sir Ijriaii Lalr)ini, had cxjnni landed ilic I^ng- 
lish who laid waste llie Pjoidcr. Ij(a1i were slain (;ii Ancruni 
Moor. 

;{;;}] The lirlh was so known in Scotland during the six- 
teenth centurv . 

HOOK II 



128 



IJOtejS on the tilt of 



BOOK II 

* Among the abbeys and churches desecrated within a few 
weeks after the march of the Congregation upon Edin- 
burgh were the following: Aberbrothick, Cupar, Cambus- 
kenneth, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Edinburgh, Kelso, Paisley, 
Stirling, St. Ninians, Scone and Dumfermline. 

BOOK III 

* The Regent Arran had accepted a pension from France, 
and had been created Duke of Chatelherault within that 
kingdom. 

t Maitland's wooing found no favourwith his friends. "The 
Secretary's wife is dead," growls Grange, "and he is a 
suitor for Mary Fleming who is as meet for him as I to 
be a page." Randolph was amused, and expressed him- 
self in this fashion : ' ' My old friend Lethington hath lei- 
sure to make love; and in the end, I believe, as wise as 
he is, will show himself a very fool, and stark staring 
mad." 

X The official view of the transaction is given in the Act 
of Parliament for Both well's forfeiture passed December 
20, 1567, from which the following is an extract: 
He, with a great number of armed men — to wit, a 
thousand horsemen in mail, and others equipped in 
warlike manner — did, on the twenty-fourth day of the 
month of April last, waylay our dearest mother Mary, 
then Queen of Scots, on her journey from Linlithgow 
to our city of Edinburgh, she suspecting no evil from 
any subject of hers, much less from the said Earl of 
Both well, to whom she had vouchsafed as many tokens 
of liberality and bounty as any prince could show or ex- 
hibit to a faithful subject; and with force and treason- 
able violence did seize upon her august person, and did 
lay violent hands upon her, not permitting her to enter 
the city of Edinburgh peacefully; but committed the 
heinous crime of ravishment upon her august person, 
by apprehending our said dearest mother on the public 
highway, and by carrying her away on the same night 

"to 



Sir ^lilltam l=iirfealDt, Knt. ,29 

'to the Castle of Dunbar, which was then in his keep- 
' ing ; bv forcibly and \ iolentlv incarcerating and holding 
'her therein ca})tive for the space of twelve days or 
'thereby; and by compelling her, through fear, to which 
'even the most constant of women are liable, to give him 
'a promise of marriage at as early period as it possibly 
'could be contracted." 

§ "The Laird of Grange had already viewed the ground 
' and with all possible diligence caused e\ery horseman 
'take on a footman of the Regent's guard behind him, and 
'ride with speed to the head of the Langsyde hill, and 
' set down the said footmen with their culverins at a strait 
'lane head, where there were some houses and gardens of 
' great advantage; which soldiers, with their continual shot, 
' dropped down divers in the vanguard led by the Hamil- 
'tons. . . . Grange cried, at the joining, to let the enemy lay 
' down first their spears, and to bear up theirs ; which spears 
' were so thick fixed in others jacks, that some of the pis- 
' tols and great staves that were thrown by them that were 
'behind, might be seen lying ui)on the spears." Memoirs 
OF Sir James Melville. 

BOOK IV 

" George Gordon, fifth Earl of Huntley, w ho succeeded to 
the title in 1567. In this year was rescinded the sentence 
of forfeiture which had been passed upon his father's 
corpse in 1562. 

t The Earl of Athole had married Margaret Fleming, sis- 
ter to the Secretary's w ife. 

;{l " Upon Saturday, the t\v entv-second of Aj)ril, the Lord 
"Seton assembled all hi^ forces at the palace of Holyrood 
"House and made no small brag, that he would enter the 
" town of Fxlinburgh and strike his drum in clesjjite ol' all 
"the cairles. . . . That same night the Hamilton traitors 
"and others joined with him, \\ lujm the Captain, llicn 
"Provost of the town, caused to bi- received, notw ilhsland- 
" ing his former vows." Hannaiv.ne's MEMOittvi^i. 

^"On Tuysflav the Innl ol' Aprvlc, the hcid of wit the 

" Secretaire, 



3° 



l^otejs 



'Secretaire, landit in the nyght at Leyth whare he re- 
'mained till the morne, and was borne up with six work- 
'men with sting and ling, and Mr. Robert Maitland 
'haulding up his head, and when they had put him in 
'at the castle yeat, ilk ane of the workmen gat iii sh. 
'which they receavit grudginglie, hoping to have gottin 
'mair for their laboure. And being put in Lord Homes 
' chalmer, he maid the Lord exceedingly angrie that he 
'suld be discharged for sic a one." Bannatyne's Memo- 
rials. 

li Mr. Burton assumes that this person was none other than 
John Knox, but it seems clear that Knox was in St. An- 
drews at this time, and the identity of "Mr. John," the 
spokesman for the preachers, is thus left in doubt. 

BOOK V 

*That Knox, shortly after his arrival in St. Andrews, was 
prophesying the fate of Grange is shown in the following 
extract from the Autobiography and Diary of Mr. James 
Melville : 
This year (l57l) in the month of July, Mr. John David- 
son, one of our Regents, made a play at the marriage 
of Mr. John Colvin, which was played in Mr. Knox's 
presence; wherein, according to Mr. Knox's doctrine, 
the Castle of Edinburgh was besieged, taken, and the 
Captain, with one or two with him, hanged in effigy." 

tA bitter satire upon the Secretary, printed by Robert 
Lekpreuik at Edinburgh. For this and other offences 
against the Castilians, Lekpreuik was compelled to leave 
the city, after narrowly escaping arrest by Grange. 



> 



THIS ^OOYi is one of an edition of One Hundred and 
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